Muscles that move the retina augment compound eye vision in Drosophila.

Most animals have compound eyes, with tens to thousands of lenses attached rigidly to the exoskeleton. A natural assumption is that all of these species must resort to moving either their head or their body to actively change their visual input. However, classic anatomy has revealed that flies have muscles poised to move their retinas under the stable lenses of each compound eye.

Functional Multigenomic Screening of Human-Associated Bacteria for NF-κB-Inducing Bioactive Effectors.

The effect of the microbiota on its human host is driven, at least in part, by small-molecule and protein effectors it produces. Here, we report on the use of functional multigenomic screening to identify microbiota-encoded effectors. In this study, genomic DNA from 116 human-associated bacteria was cloned , and the resulting multigenomic library was screened using a nuclear factor-κB reporter (NF-κB) assay.

Autoregulation of the Streptococcus mutans SloR Metalloregulator Is Constitutive and Driven by an Independent Promoter.

, one of ∼600 bacterial species in the human oral cavity, is among the most acidogenic constituents of the plaque biofilm. Considered to be the primary causative agent of dental caries, harbors a 25-kDa SloR metalloregulatory protein which controls metal ion transport across the bacterial cell membrane to maintain essential metal ion homeostasis. The expression of SloR derives in part from transcriptional readthrough of the operon, which encodes a Mn/Fe ABC transport system.