A fungal lytic polysaccharide monooxygenase is required for cell wall integrity, thermotolerance, and virulence of the fungal human pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans.

Fungi often adapt to environmental stress by altering their size, shape, or rate of cell division. These morphological changes require reorganization of the cell wall, a structural feature external to the cell membrane composed of highly interconnected polysaccharides and glycoproteins. Lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs) are copper-dependent enzymes that are typically secreted into the extracellular space to catalyze initial oxidative steps in the degradation of complex biopolymers such as chitin and cellulose.

Monitoring of Campylobacter jejuni in a chicken infection model by measuring specific volatile organic compounds and by qPCR.

Campylobacter is one of the leading bacterial foodborne pathogens worldwide. Poultry is the host species with this pathogen with the highest clinical impact. Flocks become colonised with Campylobacter, which leads to contamination of product entering the food-chain.

The Homolog of the Gene of the BTP1 Phage from Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium ST313 Is an Antivirulence Gene in Salmonella enterica Serovar Dublin.

In a previous study, a novel virulence gene, , identified in a serovar Typhimurium sequence type 313 (ST313) strain was found to be conserved in all published serovar Dublin genomes. In order to analyze the role of this gene in the host-pathogen interaction in Dublin, a mutant where this gene was deleted ( Dublin Δ) and a mutant which was further genetically complemented with ( Dublin 3246-C) were constructed and tested in models of and infection as well as during growth competition assays in M9 medium, Luria-Bertani broth, and cattle blood. In contrast to the results obtained for a strain of Typhimurium ST313, the lack of was found to be associated with increased virulence in Dublin.

Fluidic system for long-term in vitro culturing and monitoring of organotypic brain slices.

Brain slice preparations cultured in vitro have long been used as a simplified model for studying brain development, electrophysiology, neurodegeneration and neuroprotection. In this paper an open fluidic system developed for improved long term culturing of organotypic brain slices is presented. The positive effect of continuous flow of growth medium, and thus stability of the glucose concentration and waste removal, is simulated and compared to the effect of stagnant medium that is most often used in tissue culturing.

Dielectrophoretic manipulation and solubility of protein nanofibrils formed from crude crystallins.

Protein nanofibrils and nanotubes are now widely accepted as having potential for use in the field of bionanotechnology. For this to be a feasible alternative to existing technologies, there is a need for a commercially viable source. Previous work has identified amyloid fibrils formed from crude crystallin proteins as such a source, since these fibrils can be produced in large quantities at a low cost.

Stability of diphenylalanine peptide nanotubes in solution.

Over the last couple of years, self-organizing nanotubes based on the dipeptide diphenylalanine have received much attention, mainly as possible building blocks for the next generation of biosensors and as drug delivery systems. One of the main reasons for this large interest is that these peptide nanotubes are believed to be very stable both thermally and chemically. Previously, the chemical and thermal stability of self-organizing structures has been investigated after the evaporation of the solvent.

A generalized theoretical model for "continuous particle separation in a microchannel having asymmetrically arranged multiple branches".

In this article we present a generalized theoretical model for the continuous separation of particles using the pinched flow fractionation method. So far the theoretical models have not been able to predict the separation of particles without the use of correction factors. In this article we present a model which is capable of predicting the separation from first principles.