13.05.08
New paper in Nature Rev. Microbiology
Decisions on the existence of species and methods to define them should be guided by a method-free species concept that is based on cohesive evolutionary forces. This review summarizes current approaches to defining species and the problems of these approaches, and presents selected examples of the population genetic patterns at and below the species level. Achtman M, Wagner M. 2008. Microbial diversity and the genetic nature of microbial species. Nature Rev. Microbiol., in press. Advance Online Publication
13.05.08
New paper in Ann. Rev. Microbiology
Although Chlamydiae are major pathogens of humans and animals, they were long recognized only as a phylogenetically well-separated, small group of closely related microorganisms. Today, several chlamydia-like bacteria have been described as symbionts of free-living amoebae and other eukaryotic hosts. Some of these environmental chlamydiae might also be of medical relevance for humans. Their analysis has contributed to a broader understanding of chlamydial biology and to novel insights into the evolution of these unique microorganisms. Horn M. 2008. Chlamydiae as symbionts in eukaryotes. Ann. Rev. Microbiol. 62: 113-131. Reviews in Advance
07.05.08
Postdoc position available: A PostDoc position is available at the Department of Microbial Ecology in the project "Diversity and biogeography of thermophilic sporeforming sulfate-reducing
microorganisms in cold marine aediments". Job advertisement [PDF]
06.02.08 New paper in PNAS Thermophilic ammonia-oxidizing archaea have recently been discovered, in an enrichment from a geothermal spring, by researchers of the University of Vienna, the University of Hamburg, and the Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology. Single-cell metabolic analysis revealed that this archaeon is active at low ammonium concentrations, but highly sensitive to slightly increased amounts of this substrate. Its preference for elevated temperatures supports the hypothesis that ammonia-oxidizing archaea originated from a thermophilic ancestor. Hatzenpichler R, Lebedeva EV, Spieck E, Stoecker K, Richter A, Daims H, Wagner M. 2008. A moderately thermophilic ammonia-oxidizing crenarchaeote from a hot spring. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105: 2134-2139. Abstract (PNAS website)PDF Unerwarteter Mikroorganismus in heißer Quelle (Die Universität Online) Ö1 radio report in "Wissen Aktuell" [MP3] Wiener entdecken neue Mikroorganismen (Der Standard)
02.01.08
DoME contributes cover page for "Brock - Biology of Microorganisms" The twelfth edition of "Brock - Biology of Microorganisms" (Madigan, Martinko, Dunlap, Clark, eds.) features on the cover a figure showing the filamentaous methane oxidizer Crenothrix polyspora, contributed by Kilian Stoecker, Holger Daims, and Michael Wagner. The figure was created from a confocal image stack processed and rendered using the image analysis software daime. Brock is among the most widely used, authoritative text books for introductory microbiology. Software daime Original paper on Crenothrix polsypora
18.9.07 New paper in PLoS Biology: Trentmann O, Horn M, van Scheltinga AC, Neuhaus HE, Haferkamp I. 2007. Enlightening energy parasitism by analysis of an ATP/ADP transporter from chlamydiae. PLoS Biol. 9: e231. PLoS Biology
14.9.07 probeCheck beta test
We are proud to announce the beta test of probecheck, a new web server for convenient testing of probe and primer specificity and coverage. probeCheck uses an extendable list of established sequence databases including the rRNA database Silva, RDP-II, and Greengenes, and the functional gene databases of FGPR. probeCheck webserver
Recent probeBase updates links to probeCheck included; freely editable user comments for each probe, new search interface and options, major layout changes; unique probeBase accession numbers added for all probes, delta G values (Yilmaz et al., 2004) included for all probes; possibility to submit probes prior to publication (by hiding the nucleotide sequence) implemented
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13.05.08
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