Catalysis and regulation: Proteins: Web alert

A selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to papers published in this issue of Current Opinion in Structural Biology.     

Catalysis and regulation: Proteins

A selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to reviews published in this issue of Current Opinion in Structural Biology.     

Structural biology: Paper alert

A selection of interesting papers that were published in the two months before our press date in major journals most likely to report significant results in structural biology.     

Structural biology

A selection of interesting papers that were published in the two months before our press date in major journals most likely to report significant results in structural biology.     

Cell biology. Web alert

A selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to papers published in this issue of Current Opinion in Plant Biology.     

Cell multiplication: Web alert

The search for the Websites described below was performed during October 1999.     

Plant biology: Paper alert

A selection of interesting papers that were published in the two months before our press date in major journals most likely to report significant results in plant biology.     

Paper alert: Plant biology

A selection of interesting papers that were published in the two months before our press date in major journals most likely to report significant results in plant biology.     

Web alert. Biopolymers model systems

A selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to papers published in this issue of Current Opinion in Chemical Biology.     

Growth and development. Web alert

A selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to the reviews published in this issue of Current Opinion in Microbiology.     

Contribution of genomics to bacterial pathogenesis

Genomics is changing the landscape of modern biology. The impact is far-reaching because it provides both the most economical means of acquiring large amounts of information and because it has forced the creation of new technologies to exploit this information. Five of the six genomes published in the year from August 1998 to August 1999 were human pathogens, all of which are highly host-adapted. Four of these are obligate intracellular pathogens and the study of these genomes is providing novel insights into the intricacies of pathogen-host interactions and co-evolution. These genomes are also significant because they mark the beginning of an important trend in the sequencing of closely related genomes, including the sequencing of more than one strain from a single pathogenic species. As comparative genomics truly comes of age, the ability to compare the genomes of pathogenic and non-pathogenic organisms will hopefully provide insight into what makes certain bacterial strains and species pathogens.     

Insights into the evolutionary process of genome degradation

Studies of noncoding and pseudogene sequence diversity, particularly in Rickettsia, have begun to reveal the basic principles of genome degradation in microorganisms. Increasingly, studies of genes and genomes suggest that there has been an extensive amount of horizontal gene transfer among microorganisms. As this inflow of genetic material does not seem generally to have resulted in genome size expansions, however, degenerative processes must be at the very least as widespread as horizontal gene transfer. The basic principles of gene degradation and elimination that are being explored in Rickettsia are likely to be of major importance for our understanding of how microbial genomes evolve.     

Selfish operons: the evolutionary impact of gene clustering in prokaryotes and eukaryotes

The Selfish Operon Model postulates that the organization of bacterial genes into operons is beneficial to the constituent genes in that proximity allows horizontal cotransfer of all genes required for a selectable phenotype; eukaryotic operons formed for very different reasons. Horizontal transfer of selfish operons most probably promotes bacterial diversification.