A Snip­pet of Re­cent Mi­cro­bial Reads

by Daniel P. Haeusser

Next se­mes­ter I'll be start­ing a course co-taught with ano­ther mem­ber of the Can­i­sius Col­lege Bi­ol­ogy Depart­ment that in­te­grates con­cepts from En­vi­ron­men­tal and Patho­ge­nic Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy. Af­ter all, what is path­o­genic dis­ease other than the ecol­ogy of mi­crobes in­ter­act­ing within the host's en­vi­ron­ment? There are many books I have pil­ed to men­tion here in a fu­ture post, but for now I thought I'd share two pairs of re­cent ti­tles that I'm read­ing and ref­er­enc­ing for top­ics to in­clude in this inte­gra­tive course.

A Pair of Re­view An­tholo­gies

Fig­ure 1. Me­tab­o­lism and Bac­te­r­ial Patho­ge­ne­sis (2015)

Me­tab­o­lism and Bac­te­r­ial Patho­gen­e­sis (2015) Edited by Tyrrell Con­way and Paul Co­hen, ASM Press. ISBN: 9781555818869. 382 pages, hard­back.

"…al­though sev­eral fac­tors could the­o­ret­i­cally con­tribute to a microorganism's abil­ity to col­o­nize the in­testi­nal eco­system, ef­fec­tive com­ple­tion for nu­tri­ents is para­mount to suc­cess." So the ed­i­tors ref­er­ence re­searcher Rolf Fre­ter in their in­tro­duc­tion to this new in­te­gra­tive text. This vol­ume high­lights this truth with a bio­che­mi­cal fo­cus on bac­te­r­ial pathogens and the hu­man host. This in­cludes chap­ters on en­teric, res­pi­ra­tory, uri­nary tract, and in­tra­cel­lu­lar pathogens. Some chap­ters also fo­cus at­ten­tion on the role of com­men­sal com­mu­ni­ties, such as in den­tal plaque or in the gut through in­ter­ac­tion with host im­mu­nity. More species-spe­cific top­ics in­clude cen­tral car­bon me­tab­o­lism by Bor­re­lia burgdor­feri, reg­u­la­tion of E. coli fim­briae by host sialic acid, and Pseu­do­monas aerug­i­nosa me­tab­o­lism dur­ing in­fec­tion of cys­tic fi­bro­sis pa­tients. Though it is sparse in its fig­ures, this is a timely and in­­­for­­ma­­tion-rich col­lec­tion that should be a wel­come re­source for many mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists.

Fig­ure 2. Cli­mate Change and Mi­cro­bial Ecol­ogy: Cur­rent Re­search and Fu­ture Trends (2016)

Cli­mate Change and Mi­cro­bial Ecol­ogy: Cur­rent Re­search and Fu­ture Trends (2016) Edited by Jür­gen Marxsen, Cais­ter Aca­d­e­mic Press. ISBN: 9781910190319. 203 pages, pa­per­back.

As one might ex­pect, this new text nicely re­views im­por­tant top­ics in en­vi­ron­men­tal mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy re­search re­la­ted to the in­creas­ing trends of global cli­mate change. Edi­tor Marxsen does a great job with the breadth of co­ver­age, in­clud­ing chap­ters on viruses, bac­te­ria, fungi, and pro­tists alike, in a range of en­vi­ron­ments from ma­rine, fresh­wa­ter, to soil. Chap­ters ad­dress both the data that is known re­gard­ing al­ter­ations in bio­chem­istry, bio­geol­ogy, and com­mu­nity in­ter­ac­tions due to cli­mate change, but also high­light ar­eas where data is par­tic­u­larly lack­ing, such as in sed­i­ments and in­land wa­ters. The first chap­ters also in­cor­po­rate rel­e­vance to ris­ing path­o­genic risks due to cli­mate change through al­ter­ations in abun­dance of cyanobac­te­ria or Vib­rio species, or ex­pan­sion of fresh­water par­a­site ranges. With mul­ti­ple black-and-white and color fig­ures typ­i­cal of jour­nal re­view ar­ti­cles in each chap­ter this is im­pres­sive short overview of a topic with likely broad stu­dent ap­peal.

A Pair of Ref­er­ences

Fig­ure 3. Man­ual of Clin­i­cal Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy, 2 Vol­umes, 11th Edi­tion (2015)

Man­ual of Clin­i­cal Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy, 2 Vol­umes, 11^th Edi­tion (2015) Edited by Jor­gensen et al., ASM Press. ISBN: 9781555817374. 2571 pages (plus in­tro­duc­tions & in­dices), hard­back.

Many read­ers of this blog are doubt­less al­ready aware of this ex­ten­sive and es­sen­tial ref­er­ence for cur­rent in­for­ma­tion and prac­tice re­lated to clin­i­cal mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy. Co­ve­ring or­gan­is­mal bi­ol­ogy, dis­ease char­ac­ter­is­tics, re­search and di­ag­nos­tic tech­niques, an­timi­cro­bial agents, and safety prac­tices, the re­cent eleventh edi­tion in­cor­po­rates the lat­est find­ings, par­tic­u­larly the grow­ing ge­nomic and pro­teomic data avail­able for pathogens. For gen­eral in­ter­est read­ers the open­ing sec­tion of the first vol­ume has ex­cel­lent chap­ters of ba­sic in­for­ma­tion on top­ics such as mi­croscopy, mol­e­c­u­lar epi­demi­ol­ogy, bio­threat agents, and the hu­man mi­cro­biome. The re­main­der of the first vol­ume deals with bac­te­ri­ol­ogy, while the sec­ond vol­ume cov­ers vi­rol­ogy, my­col­ogy, and par­a­sitol­ogy. This is ob­vi­ously an im­por­tant re­source for clin­i­cal mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists, but it also makes a use­ful go-to ref­er­ence for sum­mary and facts needed for teach­ing the medical/clinical side of the field.

Fig­ure 4. Prac­ti­cal Hand­book of Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy, 3rd Edi­tion (2015)

Prac­ti­cal Hand­book of Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy, 3^rd Edi­tion (2015) Edited by Emanuel Gold­man and Lor­rence H. Green, CRC Press. ISBN: 9781466587397. 1055 pages, hard­back.

For those that may not get much use out of the mam­moth two-vol­ume ref­er­ence above, but would ap­pre­ci­ate a more com­pact vol­ume that also ex­tends past clin­i­cal ap­pli­ca­tion, this vol­ume may be of in­ter­est. As with the text above, this hand­book starts with a sec­tion of chap­ters that cover gen­eral mi­cro­bi­o­log­i­cal prac­tices and prin­ci­ples, in­clud­ing ster­il­iza­tion, an­tibi­otics, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and quan­ti­ta­tion, and epi­demi­ol­ogy. A par­tic­u­larly fas­ci­nat­ing chap­ter on the "Busi­ness of Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy" ends the first sec­tion, with de­tails on hos­pi­tal ma­na­ge­ment, health in­sur­ance, and gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions (among oth­ers). The sec­ond sec­tion nar­rows fo­cus to spe­cific groups of or­gan­isms with great­est em­pha­sis on bac­te­ria. But it also in­cludes chap­ters on viruses (in­clu­ding some on phage), fungi, par­a­sites, and ar­chaea. The lack of fig­ures in this hand­book makes it un­suit­able for some­thing like an un­der­grad­u­ate text­book, but as a sup­ple­men­tary re­source for stu­dent or in­struc­tor it would be very ben­e­fi­cial in its com­pre­hen­sive scope across gen­eral mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy.

 

Daniel is an As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the Bi­ol­ogy De­part­ment of Can­i­sius Col­lege in Buf­falo, New York. He teaches courses in the fresh­man and sopho­more in­tro­duc­tory se­quence, Gen­eral Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy, and an in­te­grated En­vi­ron­men­tal & Path­o­genic Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy course. In his lab he fo­cuses on un­der­grad­u­ate re­search men­tor­ing through projects on bac­te­r­ial cell di­vi­sion and phage fac­tors that sub­vert the bac­te­r­ial cy­toskele­ton. In ad­di­tion to sci­ence, he en­joys read­ing, writ­ing, and film. He can be found on Twit­ter and his book re­views at Read­ing 1000 Lives or on Goodreads.