The Journal of Bacteriology publishes research articles focused on fundamental processes in bacteria, archaea, and their viruses and the molecular mechanisms by which they interact with each other and with their hosts and their environments.

Researchers make new insights into bacterial cell cycle

Three scientists in the Mera Lab, Stephanie Puentes-Rodriguez, Paola Mera, and Inoka Menikpurage, stand together smiling for the camera. They are in the doorway leading from one lab space to additional lab space. They are all smiling.
In a recent paper published in the Journal of Bacteriology, the Mera Lab focused on how the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus coordinates the replication and separation of the chromosome simultaneously. The researchers found that the regulators of those two crucial events communicate with each other...

New role of small RNAs in Salmonella infections uncovered

Microbiology professor Cari Vanderpool and PhD student Sabrina Abdulla
Salmonella are food-borne pathogens that infect millions of people a year. To do so, these bacteria depend on a complex network of genes and gene products that allow them to sense environmental conditions. In a new paper, researchers have investigated the role of small RNAs that help Salmonella...

Researchers find new control mechanism for sugar metabolism in gut microbes

Amanda Adams works in lab at anaerobic hood.
In a new University of Illinois study, researchers found that genes encoding a previously unstudied family of RBPs are highly expressed in many Bacteroides species. They also demonstrated that mutants of the prevalent human gut bacteria Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron that lacked RBPs exhibited...