Annual Review of Microbiology articles

Recent articles from Annual Review of Microbiology

Gathering no moss.
January 1, 2003... * Abstract I never imagined that I would be asked to write an autobiography in a microbiology tome. For that matter, little did I think that I would consider microbiology the most intriguing subject in the life sciences and the only field I wanted to study. My formal scientific training was...

Molecular pathogenicity of the oral opportunistic pathogen Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans.
January 1, 2003... * Abstract Periodontitis is mankind's most common chronic inflammatory disease. One severe form of periodontitis is localized aggressive periodontitis (LAP), a condition to which individuals of African origin demonstrate an increased susceptibility. The main causative organism of this disease...

Brucella stationary-phase gene expression and virulence.
January 1, 2003... * Abstract The capacity of the Brucella spp. to establish and maintain long-term residence in the phagosomal compartment of host macrophages is critical to their ability to produce chronic infections in their mammalian hosts. The RNA binding protein host factor I (HF-I) encoded by the hfq...

How bacteria assemble flagella.
January 1, 2003... * Abstract The bacterial flagellum is both a motor organelle and a protein export/assembly apparatus. It extends from the cytoplasm to the cell exterior. All the protein subunits of the external elements have to be exported. Export employs a type III pathway, also utilized for secretion of...

A salvage pathway for protein synthesis: tmRNA and trans-translation.
January 1, 2003... * Abstract Transfer-messenger RNA (tmRNA, or SsrA), found in all eubacteria, has both transfer and messenger RNA activity. Relieving ribosome stalling by a process called trans-translation, tmRN[A.sup.a1a] enters the ribosome and adds its aminoacylated alanine to the nascent polypeptide. The...