Antibiotics are molecules of biological warfare. Produced by bacteria and some fungi, in response to extracellular signals, antibiotics represent a diverse group of compounds that inhibit bacterial growth at different points and different stages of the life cycle. We will get around to antibiotic resistance, but in these few words ...
This is a multi-part series on antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Eventually, we'll reach the ways in which bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, but before we get there, we'll spend a little more time on antibiotics themselves. What have we learned so far? 1. Antibiotics are natural products, made by bacteria and ...
The wind storms and heavy rains that hit Seattle a few years ago, and flooded the Battery Street tunnel, demonstrated why a bypass mechanism can be a helpful thing - for both bacteria and motorists. When the weather is nice, I bike to work. But when the weather gets bad ...
There are five ways that I know of that allow bacteria to escape death. I call these t he five paths to antibiotic resistance 1. Persistence is resistance: Most antibiotics kill by acting on the metabolic pathways needed for bacteria growth. Ironically, bacteria can survive by not growing. Read more ...
In the class that I'm teaching, we found that several PCR products, amplified from the 16S ribosomal RNA genes from bacterial isolates, contain a mixed base in one or more positions. We picked samples where the mixed bases were located in high quality regions of the sequence (Q >40), and ...
