This Week in Microbiology

TWiM #33: Tuning the immune organ

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:35:00 +0000

Vincent, Michael, and Ivo review the requirement for segmented, filamentous bacteria for the induction of a specific type of helper T cell in the gut.

Links for this episode:

Induction of Th17 cells by segmented filamentous bacteria (Cell)
Segmented filamentous bacteria take the stage (Nature)
Genome of segmented filamentous bacteria reveals auxotrophy (Cell)
Segmented filamentous bacteria and diabetes protection (PNAS)

Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twim@twiv.tv ,

TWiM #32: Not the shadow biosphere

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:17:45 +0000

Rosie Redfield talks about her evidence that a bacterium cannot grow on arsenic instead of phosphorus.

TWiM 31: Screen door on a submarine

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:15:50 +0000

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jo Handelsman, and Michael Schmidt

Vincent, Jo, and Michael discuss an archetypal protein transport system in bacterial outer membranes, and evidence that gut microbial enterotypes might not fall into defined groups.

Links for this episode:

Discovery of a TAM, a new bacterial protein transport system (Nat Struct Mol Biol)
Commentary on TAM discovery
Enterotypes of the human gut microbiome (Nature)
Gut enterotypes might be less clear-cut (Ed Yong)
Letters read on TWiM #31

TWiM #30: Unraveling melioidosis and insulin resistance

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:09:11 +0000

On episode #30 of the podcast, Vincent, Elio, and Michael review how a toxin from Burkholderia pseudomallei inhibits protein synthesis, and the role of the gut microbiome in modulating insulin resistance in mice lacking an innate immune sensor.

TWiM #29: Death and an iron-loaded spike

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:55:35 +0000

On episode #29 of the podcast, Vincent and Stanley review how a phage pierces the cell membrane with an iron-loaded spike, and two programmed cell death systems in E. coli.

TWiM #28: Not unorganized bags of enzymes

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:12:00 +0000

Vincent, Michael, and Elio review how competition within a host drives virulence of Streptococcus pneumoniae, and the expanding universe of the bacterial cytoskeleton.

TWiM #27: An inflamed gut is good for Salmonella

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Vincent, Elio, and Michael review how inflammation allows Salmonella to compete with fermenting gut microbes, and a riboswitch in bacterial and Archeal species that is triggered by fluoride.

TWiM #26: Suum cuique

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:05:00 +0000

Vincent, Elio, and Michael discuss the finding of Sutterella species in the gut of autistic children, and methods for cultivating oral bacteria.

TWiM #25: Magnetotactic bacteria and totally drug resistant TB

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:22:00 +0000

On episode #25 of the podcast, Vincent, Elio, and Michael review bacteria that use the earth’s magnetic field for navigation, and identification of totally drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

TWiM #24: This year in microbiology

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:30:00 +0000

Vincent, Michael, and Cliff review ten compelling microbiology stories from 2011.

TWiM #23: Fighting antibiotics with toxic gas and starvation

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:32:52 +0000

Vincent, Jo, Elio, and Michael explain how a swarming bacterium helps disperse a non-motile fungus, and bacterial antibiotic tolerance mediated by hydrogen sulfide and starvation responses.

TWiM #22: Microbiology 911

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:22:27 +0000

Vincent and Michael speak with Alfred Sacchetti, MD, Chief of Emergency Services at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, about microbial infections encountered in the emergency room.

TWiM #21: Symbiotic margheritas

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:44:14 +0000

Vincent and Elio discuss ancient symbiosis between Alphaproteobacteria and catenulid flatworms, and a toxin from Helicobacter pylori that engages the mitochondrial fission machinery to induce host cell death.

TWiM #20: Facebook for bacteria

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:12:00 +0000

On episode #20 of the podcast This Week in Microbiology, Vincent, Michael, and Elio follow up on the outbreaks of E. coli in Germany and cholera in Haiti, then discuss genes that confer self-identity to Proteus mirabilis.

TWiM #19: Your microbiome is what you eat

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:44:51 +0000

Vincent, Michael, Elio, and Jo discuss the genome sequence of Y. pestis from victims of the Black Death, and the effect of diet on gut microbial enterotypes.

TWiM #18: Escherichia coli K-12, an emerging pathogen?

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:42:31 +0000

Vincent, Michael, Elio, and Stanley explain how to make the human intestinal commensal and benign laboratory bacterium Escherichia coli K-12 into an invasive organism, and the unearthing of century-old spores in New York City.

TWiM #17: Debugging endosymbiosis

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:38:55 +0000

Vincent, Michael, and Elio focus on endosymbiosis: the rapid spread of Ricekttsia in whitefiles, and a metabolic patchwork in nested symbionts of mealybugs.

TWiM #16: ICAAC Live

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:19:45 +0000

On episode #16 of the podcast This Week in Microbiology, Vincent, Michael, Arturo, Stuart, and David converse about antimicrobial resistance and why most fungi do not cause disease at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC).

TWiM #15: Microbial long distance relationships

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:51:05 +0000

On episode #15 of the podcast This Week in Microbiology, Vincent, Michael and Jo review the number of species on Earth, evidence that the 2010 Haitian cholera outbreak originated in Nepal, and how gut microbiota influence the immune response to influenza virus infection of the lung.

TWiM #14: Vomocytosis and microbial transistors

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:17:00 +0000

On episode #14 of the podcast This Week in Microbiology, Stanley, Margaret, Michael and Elio review how the fungus Cryptococcus escapes from macrophages, and electrical conductivity in nanowires formed by the bacterium Geobacter.

TWiM #13: Probiotics and inflammasomes: Telling good bacteria from the bad

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:13:25 +0000

On episode #13 of the podcast This Week in Microbiology, Stanley, Jo, Michael and Elio discuss how colonic microbial ecology and risk for colitis are regulated by an inflammasome, and amelioration of intestinal inflammation in mice by delivery of a probiotic-derived soluble protein to the colon.

TWiM #12: Photothermal nanoblades and genome engineering

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:38:32 +0000

Vincent, Margaret, Michael and Elio review the use of photothermal nanoblades to dissect the Burkholderia intracellular life cycle, and manipulation of chromosomes in vivo for genome-wide codon replacement in E. coli.

TWiM #11: Chickens, antibiotics, and asthma

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:26:21 +0000

Vincent, Margaret, Michael and Elio review the presence of extended spectrum beta-lactamase genes in chicken meat and in humans, and a beneficial effect of Helicobacter pylori colonization on the development of allergen-induced asthma.

TWiM #10: A symbiotic cloaking device

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:41:53 +0000

On episode #10 of the podcast This Week in Microbiology, Vincent, Margaret, Elio, Michael and Dickson discuss the symbiosis between the Hawaiian bobtail squid and the luminous, gram-negative bacterium Vibrio fischeri.

TWiM #9: Bean sprouts and E. coli O104:H4

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:46:24 +0000

Vincent, Michael, and Cliff review the outbreak of bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome in Germany caused by Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O104:H4.

TWiM # 8: Live in NOLA

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:21:18 +0000

Vincent, Michael, and Stanley recorded TWiM #8 live at the 2011 ASM General Meeting in New Orleans, with guests Andreas Baümler, Nicole Dubilier, and Paul Rainey. They spoke about how pathogens benefit from disease, symbioses between chemosynthetic bacteria and marine invertebrates, and repetitive sequences in bacteria.

TWiM #7: Cycles of life and death, light and dark

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:28:00 +0000

Vincent, Cliff, Elio, Margaret, and Michael discuss programmed cell death in E. coli, and the daily synthesis and degradation of enzymes needed for photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation by cyanobacteria.

TWiM #6: Antibacterial therapy with bacteriophage: Reality or fiction?

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:35:00 +0000

Vincent, Cliff, Michael and Elio review the use of bacteriophages to manage infections, and the presence of antibiotic resistance genes in the bacteriophage from urban sewage and river water.

TWiM #5: Mercury-methylating Desulfovibrio and antimicrobial nanoparticles

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Vincent, Ron, Cliff, and Michael discuss the genome sequence of a mercury-methylating bacterium and the antimicrobial effects of nanoparticles.

TWiM #4: Cantaloupes and Salmonella gastroenteritis

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:50:00 +0000

Vincent, Cliff, Margaret, and Michael review foodborne bacterial illness in the context of outbreaks associated with cantaloupes and Lebanon bologna.

TWiM #3: Anthrax, genomics and the FBI inquiry

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:47:00 +0000

Vincent, Jo, Cliff, and Ron explore the genome analysis done in support of the Amerithrax investigation, and an insecticidal enterotoxin-deficient mutant of Bacillus thurigiensis.

TWiM #2: The plague, microbial virulence and the gut microbiome

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:30:00 +0000

Vincent, Cliff, and Michael review a fatal laboratory acquired Yersinia pestis infection, and how gut bacteria control body weight and metabolic activity.

TWiM #1: Neisseria LINEs up

twiv@gmail.com (Vincent Racaniello & The American Society for Microbiology) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:30:00 +0000

On episode #1 of the podcast This Week in Microbiology, Vincent, Cliff, Michael, and Stan discuss transfer of DNA from a human host to a bacterial pathogen, and the ability of dry copper to kill bacteria on contact.