Microbial production of mevalonate.

Mevalonate, an important intermediate product of the mevalonate pathway, has a broad spectrum of applications. With the rapid growth of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, mevalonate biosynthesis by microorganisms is feasible and holds great promise in the future. In this review, we summarize the applications of mevalonate and its derivatives and describe the biosynthesis pathways of mevalonate.

Sulfur metabolism in Rhodococcus species and their application in desulfurization of fossil fuels.

Organosulfur compounds in fossil fuels have been a major concern in the process of achieving zero-sulfur fuel production. Biodesulfurization (BDS) is an environmentally friendly strategy for the removal of refractory organosulfur compounds from fossil fuels. Even though researchers are committed to engineering the desulfurization-specific pathway for improving BDS efficiency, the industrial application of BDS is still difficult.

Synthetic small regulatory RNAs in microbial metabolic engineering.

Small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) finely control gene expression in prokaryotes and synthetic sRNA has become a useful high-throughput approach to tackle current challenges in metabolic engineering because of its many advantages compared to conventional gene knockouts. In this review, we first focus on the modular structures of sRNAs and rational design strategies of synthetic sRNAs on the basis of their modular structures. The wide applications of synthetic sRNAs in bacterial metabolic engineering, with or without the aid of heterogeneously expressed Hfq protein, were also covered.

Molecular epidemiological survey of bacterial and parasitic pathogens in hard ticks from eastern China.

Ticks are able to transmit various pathogens-viruses, bacteria, and parasites-to their host during feeding. Several molecular epidemiological surveys have been performed to evaluate the risk of tick-borne pathogens in China, but little is known about pathogens circulating in ticks from eastern China. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the presence of bacteria and parasites in ticks collected from Xuzhou, a 11258km region in eastern China.

Role of the spleen in Bartonella spp. infection.

Bartonella spp. are intra-erythrocytic pathogens of mammals. In this study, we investigated the role of the spleen, and other tissue and organs in Bartonella infection.

The Trw type IV secretion system of Bartonella mediates host-specific adhesion to erythrocytes.

Bacterial pathogens typically infect only a limited range of hosts; however, the genetic mechanisms governing host-specificity are poorly understood. The alpha-proteobacterial genus Bartonella comprises 21 species that cause host-specific intraerythrocytic bacteremia as hallmark of infection in their respective mammalian reservoirs, including the human-specific pathogens Bartonella quintana and Bartonella bacilliformis that cause trench fever and Oroya fever, respectively. Here, we have identified bacterial factors that mediate host-specific erythrocyte colonization in the mammalian reservoirs.

[Limitations of the application of RNA interference in the study of animal parasitic nematodes].

RNA interference is a powerful tool for investigating gene function which has been used extensively in model organisms such as Caenorhabditis elegans and has been adapted as a high-throughput screening method to identify genes. However, recent research indicates that the application of RNAi to animal parasitic nematodes has some problems. For example, the variability of RNAi to different parasitic nematodes or the same nematode in different stages is great.