Genomic and Secondary Metabolite Analyses of Streptomyces sp. 2AW Provide Insight into the Evolution of the Cycloheximide Pathway.

The dearth of new antibiotics in the face of widespread antimicrobial resistance makes developing innovative strategies for discovering new antibiotics critical for the future management of infectious disease. Understanding the genetics and evolution of antibiotic producers will help guide the discovery and bioengineering of novel antibiotics. We discovered an isolate in Alaskan boreal forest soil that had broad antimicrobial activity.

Psychrotrophic strain of Janthinobacterium lividum from a cold Alaskan soil produces prodigiosin.

We have explored the microbial community in a nonpermafrost, cold Alaskan soil using both culture-based and culture-independent approaches. In the present study, we cultured >1000 bacterial isolates from this soil and characterized the collection of isolates phylogenetically and functionally. A screen for antibiosis identified an atypical, red-pigmented strain of Janthinobacterium lividum (strain BR01) that produced prodigiosin when grown at cool temperatures as well as strains (e.

Centromeres. A journey to the center of the chromosome.

The Arabidopsis genome project is the first to give a detailed picture of the centromeres in a higher eukaryote. The centromere, a crucial stretch of DNA buried in the knotty terrain at the center of the chromosome, has generally been ignored by other genome sequencing projects because it is highly repetitive, making it very difficult to sequence accurately. But the discovery of an Arabidopsis mutant whose pollen forms quartets has enabled the plant's centromeric regions to be defined with unprecedented accuracy.

Predators, prey, and natural disasters attract ecologists.

Some 2200 ecologists turned out for the 78th annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), held in Madison, Wisconsin, 31 July to 4 August. Among the offerings: reports on the effect of dams and levees on large river ecology, predator-prey interactions, how parasites might control evolution, and the impact of clearcutting on soil organisms.