Microbes and disinfection
Antibacterial Activity of Blue Light against Nosocomial Wound Pathogens Growing Plankt\nonically and as Mature Biofilms – Fenella D. Halstead – Applied and Environmental Microbiology (OA)
(…) Here we report the findings of a multicenter in vitro study performed to assess the antimicrobial activity of 400-nm blue light against bacteria in both planktonic and biofilm growth modes. Blue light was tested against a panel of 34 bacterial isolates (clinical and type strains) (…) All planktonic-phase bacteria were susceptible to blue light treatment, with the majority (71%) demonstrating a ≥5-log10 decrease in viability after 15 to 30 min of exposure (54 J/cm2 to 108 J/cm2). Bacterial biofilms were also highly susceptible to blue light, with significant reduction in seeding observed for all isolates at all levels of exposure. These results warrant further investigation of blue light as a novel decontamination strategy for the nosocomial environment, as well as additional wider decontamination applications.
Microbes in the air
Contribution of Vegetation to the Microbial Composition of Nearby Outdoor Air
Despoina S. Lymperopoulou – Applied and Environmental Microbiology (OA)
Given that epiphytic microbes are often found in large population sizes on plants, we tested the hypothesis that plants are quantitatively important local sources of airborne microorganisms. (…) Nonmetric multidimensional scaling revealed that the composition of airborne bacteria in upwind air samples grouped separately from that of downwind air samples, while communities on plants and downwind air could not be distinguished. In contrast, fungal taxa in air samples were more similar to each other than to the fungal epiphytes. A source-tracking algorithm revealed that up to 50% of airborne bacteria in downwind air samples were presumably of local plant origin.(…) Emigration of epiphytic bacteria and, to a lesser extent, fungi, from plants can thus influence the microbial composition of nearby air, a finding that has important implications for surrounding ecosystems, including the built environment into which outdoor air can penetrate.
Microbes and food processing
Undergraduate Laboratory Exercises Specific to Food Spoilage Microbiology – Abigail B. Snyder – Journal of Food Science Education (OA)
Food spoilage has an enormous economic impact, and microbial food spoilage plays a significant role in food waste and loss; subsequently, an equally significant portion of undergraduate food microbiology instruction should be dedicated to spoilage microbiology. Here, we describe a set of undergraduate microbiology laboratory exercises that focus specifically on food spoilage which were taught in 2 lab periods as part of the undergraduate food microbiology lab curriculum at Cornell University. The lab was broken down into 3 exercises. Two exercises lead students to determine the likely source of contamination in a canned salsa through (exercise 1a) plating and observation of colony morphology and (exercise 1b) determination of the thermal resistance for those isolates. The final exercise (2) involved detection of the spoilage bacterium Alicyclobacillus in apple juice. (…) Downloadable handouts and stepwise instructions are available as supporting information.
Metagenomic discovery of novel enzymes and biosurfactants in a slaughterhouse biofilm \nmicrobial community – Stephan Thies – Scientific Reports (OA)
(…) We have constructed a metagenomic library in…
Read and Review the full paper at TheWinnower.com