Staphylococcus aureus is a spherical bacterium (coccus) which on microscopic examination appears in pairs, short chains, or bunched, grape-like clusters. These organisms are Gram-positive. Some strains are capable of producing a highly heat-stable protein toxin that causes illness in humans.
It is still unclear how antibiotics work to destroy bacteria. This knowledge, however, is required for the development of new antibiotics. That is exactly what is required because bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics.
Antimicrobial resistance represents one of the top 10 global public health threats according to the World Health Organization, and scientists have been scrambling to find new tools to cure the most deadly drug-resistant infections.
Umeå University researchers have figured out how a particular type of protein travels during DNA replication. The discovery could affect the current understanding of how bacteria propagate antibiotic resistance genes.
The World Health Organization ranks antibiotic resistance as one of the top ten threats to global health. There is therefore a great need for new solutions to tackle resistant bacteria and reduce the use of antibiotics.
Scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham used cryo-electron microscopy to reveal the structure of a bacterial virus in extraordinary detail.
Researchers investigating the effects of an organic compound on drug-resistant bacteria found how it can impede and destroy a germ that causes significant illness or even death in some situations.
During heavy rains, Hawaii's streams, rivers, and nearshore waters change on microscopic levels. Bacteria in these aquatic systems increase, and some of these bacteria can be harmful to human health.
Osaka Metropolitan University scientists have developed a simple, rapid method to simultaneously identify multiple food poisoning bacteria, based on color differences in the scattered light by nanometer-scaled organic metal nanohybrid structures (NHs) that bind via antibodies to those bacteria.
The use of less bleach and lower temperatures over washing machine cycles is promoted as a result of shifting societal attitudes toward the environment.
In hospitals, the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria can be transported from the skin or nasal cavity into open wounds and, possibly, the bloodstream, posing a fatal hazard. Staph infections killed over 20,000 Americans in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Scientists have revealed how antibiotics can regress certain fast-growing bacteria. The research was published in the journal eLife on June 8th, 2022.
Infectious-bacteria-killing molecular machines have been persuaded to reconsider their goal.
Researchers at Emory University have uncovered a mechanism for skin cell death that might lead to novel therapies for “flesh-eating” infections, alopecia, hives, and possibly even melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer.
Antibiotic-resistant hospital pathogens are not to be underestimated as a health risk. A research team has now introduced a new approach for treating multiple-drug resistant Staphylococcus in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
A study team developed an early-stage therapy that sabotages the pump and restores antibiotic efficiency by disclosing the structure of a protein needed by bacteria to pump out antibiotics.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterial infection that has become resistant to most of the antibiotics used to treat regular staph infections.
Scientists have found evidence that a type of the antibiotic resistant superbug MRSA arose in nature long before the use of antibiotics in humans and livestock, which has traditionally been blamed for its emergence.
Cutibacterium acnes, a bacteria that is known to cause acne, is also widely spread on people with healthy skin.
Scientists have developed the first “living medicine” to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria thriving on medical implants’ surfaces.
Researchers at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS (IOCB Prague) and the Technical University of Liberec in collaboration with researchers from the Institute of Microbiology of the CAS, the Department of Burns Medicine of the Third Faculty of Medicine at Charles University (Czech Republic), and P. J. Šafárik University in Košice (Slovakia) have developed a novel antibacterial material combining nonwoven nanotextile and unique compounds with antibacterial properties.