Capsules and their traits shape phage susceptibility and plasmid conjugation efficiency.

Bacterial evolution is affected by mobile genetic elements like phages and conjugative plasmids, offering new adaptive traits while incurring fitness costs. Their infection is affected by the bacterial capsule. Yet, its importance has been difficult to quantify because of the high diversity of confounding mechanisms in bacterial genomes such as anti-viral systems and surface receptor modifications.

The absence of surface D-alanylation, localized on lipoteichoic acid, impacts the way of life and antibiotic resistance.

Introduction: The operon encodes proteins responsible for the esterification of positively charged D-alanine on the wall teichoic acids and lipoteichoic acids of Gram-positive bacteria. This structural modification of the bacterial anionic surface in several species has been described to alter the physicochemical properties of the cell-wall. In addition, it has been linked to reduced sensibilities to cationic antimicrobial peptides and antibiotics.

Aberrant Clinical Appearance and Pathomorphology Noticed During an Outbreak of Histomonosis Indicates a Different Pathogenesis of Histomonas meleagridis Genotype 2.

The present case report describes a remarkable feature of Histomonas meleagridis characterized by aberrant clinical appearance and pathomorphologic lesions, which were mainly confined to the ceca, noticed during a field outbreak of histomonosis. In a flock of meat turkey toms, sudden death was noticed at the end of week 5 in the absence of specific clinical signs. Instead of the well-known sulfur-colored feces, some caseous cores were found in the litter.

Development of porous titanium for biomedical applications: A comparison between loose sintering and space-holder techniques.

One of the most important concerns in long-term prostheses is bone resorption as a result of the stress shielding due to stiffness mismatch between bone and implant. The aim of this study was to obtain porous titanium with stiffness values similar to that exhibited by cortical bone. Porous samples of commercial pure titanium grade-4 were obtained by following both loose-sintering processing and space-holder technique with NaCl between 40 and 70% in volume fraction.