Journal of Bacteriology

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.

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.

Researchers make new insights into bacterial cell cycle

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...
Microbiology professor Cari Vanderpool and PhD student Sabrina Abdulla

New role of small RNAs in Salmonella infections uncovered

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...
Amanda Adams works in lab at anaerobic hood.

Researchers find new control mechanism for sugar metabolism in gut microbes

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...
Thomas Kehl-Fie

“Intracellular accumulation of staphylopine can sensitize Staphylococcus aureus to host-imposed zinc starvation by chelation-independent toxicity”

Staphylococcus aureus is an antibiotic-resistant pathogen labelled as a “serious threat to human health” by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control. This bacteria is also the subject of a recent paper published by the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Kehl-Fie, Assistant Professor...
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Vanderpool Lab: Small RNAs fine tune how bacteria change their membranes to resist environmental stress

Graduate student Colleen Bianco and Professor Carin Vanderpool spearheaded a study that centered on how E. coli and Salmonella bacteria use RNA-based regulatory mechanisms to modify their membrane lipids in response to different stimuli. Their findings, with collaborator Kathrin Frölich (Ludwig...