by Elio — I am not usually drawn to start out an article by considering a bacterium's name, but when confronted with Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, I had to take a pause. A well-traveled Gram-negative coccobacillus, this carrier of such a convoluted moniker started life simply as an Actinobacillus...
A Unique Exotoxin-Producing Oral Bacterium by Pedro Valero-Guillén — The production and secretion of protein toxins (exotoxins) is a most common strategy among microbial pathogens. Yet, oddly, these virulence factors are fairly rare among oral pathogens, with one exception, the Gram-negative Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans. For readers with an interest in taxonomy, this microbe...
