E. coli tagged posts

Salad in space? New research says it’s not a healthy choice. It’s been more than three years since the National Aeronautics and Space Administration made space-grown lettuce an item on the menu for astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Alongside their space diet staples of flour tortillas and powdered coffee, astronauts can munch on a salad, grown from control chambers aboard the ISS that account for the ideal temperature, amount of water and light that plants need to mature.

But there is a problem...

Worldwide, more than one billion people are obese. Obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers. But permanently losing weight isn’t easy: complex interactions between body systems such as gut physiology, hormones, and the brain are known to work against it. One method for weight loss is intermittent energy restriction (IER), where days of relative fasting alternate with days of eating normally.

“Here we show that an IER diet changes the human brain-gut-microbiome axis. The observed changes in the gut microbiome and in the activity in addition-related brain regions during and after weight loss are highly dynamic and coupled over time,” said last author Dr...

Researchers at ETH Zurich are planning to use magnetic bacteria to fight cancerous tumours. They have now found a way for these microorganisms to effectively cross blood vessel walls and subsequently colonise a tumour.

Scientists around the world are researching how anti-cancer drugs can most efficiently reach the tumours they target. One possibility is to use modified bacteria as “ferries” to carry the drugs through the bloodstream to the tumours. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now succeeded in controlling certain bacteria so that they can effectively cross the blood vessel wall and infiltrate tumour tissue.

L...

Scientists have pinpointed a gene that helps deadly E. coli bacteria evade antibiotics, potentially leading to better treatments for millions of people worldwide.

The University of Queensland-led study found a particular form of the bacteria — E. coli ST131 — had a previously unnoticed gene that made it highly resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics.

Professor Mark Schembri, from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, said this ‘resistance gene’ can spread incredibly quickly.

“Unlike gene transfer in humans, where sex is required to transfer genes, bacteria have genetic structures in their cells — called plasmids — that are traded quickly and easily between each other,” Profes...