Microbes offer protection against asthma

Asthma is the most commonly prevalent disease in children. Asthma results from a combination of genetic, immunological and environmental factors. According to a study conducted in Europe, children living in farms face significantly less risk to develop asthma than others. An international team of researchers including Dr. Markus Ege and Professor Erika von Mutius of Children’s Surgical Clinic in the Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital (Medical Center of the University of Munich) has just published an epidemiological study that confirms this finding.

Their exposure to a wide variety of microorganisms may be reason for the less susceptibility to asthma.  According to the researchers there are two possible explanations for this. One is that a combination of microbes could stimulate the innate immune system which prevents the development of asthma. The other explanation being the continuous exposure to many microbes makes it difficult for the asthma causing microbe to become the dominant form in the lower respiratory tract.

This result could be a platform for the development of vaccine for asthma.

More from here: http://starglobaltribune.com/2011/asthma-symptoms-microbes-found-to-provide-protection-against-asthma-6054 

High Vitamin-D Bread Could Help Solve Widespread Insufficiency Problem

Scientists are suggesting that a new vitamin D-fortified food - bread made with high-vitamin D yeast - could help those who couldn't get enough vitamin-D from sunlight or foods. The work is published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Vitamin D insufficiency has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, cancer, allergy in children, and other conditions. Connie Weaver and colleagues did experiments with laboratory rats, a stand-in for humans in such research, that ease doubts over whether bread baked with high vitamin D yeast could be a solution. Yeast produces one form of the vitamin, termed vitamin D2, which has been thought to be not as biologically active as the form produced by sun, vitamin D3. They showed bread made with vitamin D2-rich yeast, fed to the laboratory rats, had effects that seemed just as beneficial as vitamin D3. "Our results suggest that bread made with high vitamin D yeast could be a valuable new source of vitamin D in the diet," they concluded.

More from here:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110223122425.htm

Dry Copper Kills Bacteria on Contact

Metallic copper surfaces kill microbes on contact, decimating their populations, according to a paper in the February 2011 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. They do so literally in minutes, by causing massive membrane damage after about a minute's exposure, says the study's corresponding author, Gregor Grass of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This is the first study to demonstrate this mechanism of bacteriocide.

"When microbes were exposed to copper surfaces, we observed contact killing to take place at the rate of tens to hundreds of millions of bacterial cells within minutes," says Grass. "This means that usually no live microorganisms can be recovered from copper surfaces after exposure."

Thus, such surfaces could provide a critical passive defense against pathogens in hospitals, where hospital-acquired infections are becoming increasingly common and costly.

It is important to note that only dry copper surfaces are amazingly lethal to bacteria. The difference between dry and wet surfaces, such as copper pipes, is that only dry surfaces are inhospitable environments for bacterial growth. Bacteria can easily grow and reproduce in wet environments, and in so doing, they can develop resistance to copper. Resistance has not been observed to develop on dry copper surfaces.

Lead Exposure May Affect Blood Pressure During Pregnancy

Even minute amounts of lead may take a toll on pregnant women, according to a study published by Lynn Goldman, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., Dean of George Washington University's School of Public Health and Health Services in D.C., and colleagues, in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. "We didn't expect to see effects at such low levels of lead exposure," says Goldman, "but in fact we found a strong effect." If confirmed, this would indicate that pregnant women may be as sensitive to lead toxicity as young children.

Blood pressure is slightly higher during pregnancy, child labor, and delivery as the heart pumps harder. But prolonged high blood pressure during pregnancy (pregnancy-induced hypertension) can lead to complications called preeclampsia and then eclampsia. This potentially lethal condition also can predispose women to a heart attack in their future. While any increase in blood pressure during pregnancy is worrisome, the study did not find an association between lead and pregnancy-induced hypertension or preeclampsia.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises to take action to reduce exposures when pregnant women or children have a blood lead level of 5 micrograms (µg) per deciliter (dL) or higher. Goldman feels that the recent study suggests that there are cardiovascular effects of lead in pregnant women at levels well below 5 µg/dL.

More from here:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110205142846.htm

Art With Bacteria to Find Antibiotic Resistance

 Biophysicists are growing Petri dishes of different species of bacteria in order to develop new antibiotics. The bacteria are subjected to different temperatures and have limited food sources inside the dish. Despite these conditions, most colonies tend to communicate and reproduce. Their growth results in unique patterns of varying colors--a sort of "bacteria painting." Researchers are hoping to learn more about the strategies the bacteria use to thrive, in order to find weaknesses that new drugs could exploit.
For more info:http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/1211-bacteria_as_art.htm

New Research Traces Evolutionary Path of Multidrug-Resistant Streptococcus

 New Research Traces Evolutionary Path of Multidrug-Resistant Streptococcus
In a landmark paper published this week in Science, scientists from Rockefeller University and the Sanger Institute have used full genome sequencing to identify the precise steps in the molecular evolution of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Their research shows the changes the genome of this bacterium has undergone in time and during its massive geographic spread over the globe.
The researchers, led by the Sanger Institute's Stephen D. Bentley, used high resolution genome sequencing on clinical isolates of S. pneumoniae provided by a number of collaborating laboratories, including the Laboratory of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at Rockefeller University, headed by Alexander Tomasz. With data available for the date, geographic site and infection site of these isolates, Bentley and colleagues were able to produce a roadmap for the evolution of a major multidrug resistant clones of pneumococci known as the PMEN clone 1, sequence type 81.
"The phenomenon of genetic transformation, which led Oswald Avery and his Rockefeller colleagues in 1944 to identify DNA as the genetic material, is the very process that Streptococcus pneumoniae uses during evolution in its real in vivo environment," says Tomasz.

For more info visit http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/ru-nrt012811.php

Food-borne bug causes heart infection

Researchers have found that particular strains of a food-borne bug are able to invade the heart, causing serious and difficult-to-treat infections. 

The bacteria Listeria monocytogenes is commonly found in soft cheese and chilled ready-to-eat products.

Listeria infections are usually mild, but for susceptible individuals and the elderly, it can infect the central nervous system, the placenta and the developing foetus, the Journal of Medical  Microbiology reports.

About 10 per cent of serious listeria infections involve a cardiac infection, says Nancy Freitag, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Illinois and principal study investigator. 

Read more: Food-borne bug causes heart infection - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Food-borne-bug-causes-heart-infection/articleshow/7371133.cms#ixzz1CKDyp8D3

Household Bugs: A Risk to Human Health?

Superbugs are not just a problem in hospitals but could be also coming from our animal farms. Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Microbiology indicates insects could be responsible for spreading antibiotic resistant bacteria from pigs to humans.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110126081706.htm

Microbes in Space

In the late 1990s, NASA decided to join the Russian space program in its evaluation of the microbial activity aboard Mir. NASA wanted to learn about the kinds of organisms that can grow in  spacecraft occupied for long periods of time and where air and water are  recycled.
When they opened a rarely-accessed service panel in Mir's Kvant-2 Module and discovered a large free-floating mass of water. Samples extracted from the globules by syringes and returned to Earth  for analysis contained several dozen species of bacteria and fungi, plus  some protozoa and dust mites.
Aboard Mir, colonies of organisms were also found growing on "the rubber  gaskets around windows, on the components of space suits, cable  insulations and tubing, on the insulation of copper wires, and on  communications devices," says Andrew Steele, scientist at the Carnegie  Institution of Washington working with other investigators at the  Marshall Space Flight Center In Alabama. Aside from being unattractive or an issue for human health, microorganisms can attack the structure of a spacecraft itself. In short, germs can be as bad for a spacecraft's health as for crew health