Staphylococcus aureus HrtA is an ATPase required for protection against heme toxicity and prevention of a transcriptional heme stress response.

During systemic infection, Staphylococcus aureus acquires nutrient iron from heme, the cofactor of vertebrate myoglobin and hemoglobin. Upon exposure to heme, S. aureus up-regulates the expression of the heme-regulated transporter, HrtAB.

Biocatalytic and semisynthetic optimization of the anti-invasive tobacco (1S,2E,4R,6R,7E,11E)-2,7,11-cembratriene-4,6-diol.

Tobacco cembranoids were reported to inhibit tumorigenesis. Biocatalysis of (1S,2E,4R,6R,7E,11E)-2,7,11-cembratriene-4,6-diol (1) using the symbiotic Bacillus sp. NC5, Bacillus sp.

Deinococcus peraridilitoris sp. nov., isolated from a coastal desert.

Three ionizing-radiation-resistant bacterial strains (designated KR-196, KR-198 and KR-200(T)) were isolated from a sample of arid soil collected from a coastal desert in Chile. The soil sample was irradiated before serial dilution plating was performed using one-tenth-strength plate count agar. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequences showed these organisms to represent a novel species of the genus Deinococcus, having sequence similarities of 87.

Extensive diversity of ionizing-radiation-resistant bacteria recovered from Sonoran Desert soil and description of nine new species of the genus Deinococcus obtained from a single soil sample.

The ionizing-radiation-resistant fractions of two soil bacterial communities were investigated by exposing an arid soil from the Sonoran Desert and a nonarid soil from a Louisiana forest to various doses of ionizing radiation using a (60)Co source. The numbers of surviving bacteria decreased as the dose of gamma radiation to which the soils were exposed increased. Bacterial isolates surviving doses of 30 kGy were recovered from the Sonoran Desert soil, while no isolates were recovered from the nonarid forest soil after exposure to doses greater than 13 kGy.

Mars-like soils in the Atacama Desert, Chile, and the dry limit of microbial life.

The Viking missions showed the martian soil to be lifeless and depleted in organic material and indicated the presence of one or more reactive oxidants. Here we report the presence of Mars-like soils in the extreme arid region of the Atacama Desert. Samples from this region had organic species only at trace levels and extremely low levels of culturable bacteria.