China officinalis as Possible Homeopathic Prophylaxis for the Brazilian Dengue Epidemic.

Dengue, a hyperendemic arbovirus thriving in tropical and sub-tropical climates globally, has seen a significant surge in Brazil over the past 5 years. Presently, the country faces an epidemic, posing a huge challenge to Public Health authorities due to the potentially lethal nature of severe infections. Based on Hahnemannian concepts and on the historically reported efficacy of homeopathy in fighting epidemics, this study aimed to provide supporting evidence for a homeopathic genus epidemicus approach to prevent severe forms of dengue.

Evolution and stability of complex microbial communities driven by trade-offs.

Microbial communities are ubiquitous in nature and play an important role in ecology and human health. Cross-feeding is thought to be core to microbial communities, though it remains unclear precisely why it emerges. Why have multi-species microbial communities evolved in many contexts and what protects microbial consortia from invasion? Here, we review recent insights into the emergence and stability of coexistence in microbial communities.

Homeostasis of cytoplasmic crowding by cell wall fluidization and ribosomal counterions.

In bacteria, algae, fungi, and plant cells, the wall must expand in concert with cytoplasmic biomass production, otherwise cells would experience toxic molecular crowding or lyse. But how cells achieve expansion of this complex biomaterial in coordination with biosynthesis of macromolecules in the cytoplasm remains unexplained, although recent works have revealed that these processes are indeed coupled. Here, we report a striking increase of turgor pressure with growth rate in suggesting that the speed of cell wall expansion is controlled via turgor.

Plasticity of growth laws tunes resource allocation strategies in bacteria.

Bacteria like E. coli grow at vastly different rates on different substrates, however, the precise reason for this variability is poorly understood. Different growth rates have been attributed to 'nutrient quality', a key parameter in bacterial growth laws.