This minireview presents the career of biophysicist Howard Berg from his first interest in bacterial chemotaxis and motility through the present. After a summary of some of his early work, a series of reminiscences of students, postdocs, colleagues, and family members is presented. In sum, these recollections capture the effect that Howard's scientific life has had on the field of bacterial chemotaxis and motility and on the careers and lives of those who have interacted with him.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/JB.00494-20 | DOI Listing |
Int J Mol Sci
December 2024
CAS Key Laboratory for Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Recently, we developed a spatial phage-assisted continuous evolution (SPACE) system. This system utilizes chemotaxis coupled with the growth of motile bacteria during their spatial range expansion in soft agar to provide fresh host cells for iterative phage infection and selection pressure for preserving evolved genes of interest carried by phage mutants. Controllable mutagenesis activated only in a subpopulation of the migrating cells is essential in this system to efficiently generate mutated progeny phages from which desired individuals are selected during the directed evolution process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants (Basel)
January 2025
Department of Integrated Biological Science, Pusan National University, Busan 46241, Republic of Korea.
For plant diseases to become established, plant pathogens require not only virulence factors and susceptible hosts, but also optimal environmental conditions. The accumulation of high soil salinity can have serious impacts on agro-biological ecosystems. However, the interactions between plant pathogens and salinity have not been fully characterized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWorld J Microbiol Biotechnol
January 2025
Department of Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, 34700, Turkey.
Thermomonas hydrothermalis, a thermophilic bacterium isolated from hot springs, exhibits unique genomic features that underpin its adaptability to extreme environments and its potential in industrial biotechnology. In this study, we present a comparative genomic analysis of two strains, DSM 14834 and HOT.CON.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Institute of Environmental Engineering, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8093, Switzerland.
Chemotaxis enables marine bacteria to increase encounters with phytoplankton cells by reducing their search times, provided that bacteria detect noisy chemical gradients around phytoplankton. Gradient detection depends on bacterial phenotypes and phytoplankton size: large phytoplankton produce spatially extended but shallow gradients, whereas small phytoplankton produce steeper but spatially more confined gradients. To date, it has remained unclear how phytoplankton size and bacterial swimming speed affect bacteria's gradient detection ability and search times for phytoplankton.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNAR Genom Bioinform
March 2025
Department of Molecular Genetics, Groningen, Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 7, 9747 AG Groningen, the Netherlands.
σ serves as an unconventional sigma factor with a distinct mechanism of transcription initiation, which depends on the involvement of a transcription activator. This unique sigma factor σ is indispensable for orchestrating the transcription of genes crucial to nitrogen regulation, flagella biosynthesis, motility, chemotaxis and various other essential cellular processes. Currently, no comprehensive tools are available to determine σ promoters and regulon in bacterial genomes.
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