Skin Microbes

The Human Microbiome is the collection of microbes living in and on our bodies, the number of microbes greatly outnumber the amount of human cells in the body. Since there are so many microbes in our bodies we are always constantly learning new things about the microbes that inhabit our bodies. In this article researchers discovered that our immune system influences the types of microbes that live on our skin and thus potentially prevents disease. This meaning that the immune system of a healthy person will harbor different types of bacteria and fungi on the skin, compared to people with primary immunodeficiencies with eczema-like skin conditions. The study observed patients with reduced immune function as a result of rare genetic defects, in which they all had an eczema-like skin condition and compared them to healthy individuals to see what type of bacteria and fungi are growing. They concluded that the immune system plays a major role in dealing with what types of microbes your skin has, and that patients with the skin condition have different types of microbes present. In the study they also found that different areas of the body tend to have more or less microbes depending on the area. For example the skin at the elbow crease has very few microbes compared to the skin behind your ear. Although this article was interesting it was hard to follow and understand all the details. They also did not mention specific ways in which the study can actually help patients with the rare genetic disorders, they just gave a brief explanation that this research may have implications, which left me curious and with some unanswered questions. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131029133542.htm

Patient with an eczema-like skin rash.

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Immortal MIcrobes !

Do you sometimes wish that you could stay young forever? I know I do. But aging is a part of life and is inevitable. But this is not that case of a common species of yeast microbe, which has actually evolved to stay young. Researchers from the University of Bristol and Max Planck Institute have discovered this microbe that stays forever young by rejuvenating every time it reproduces. The team showed that the yeast microbe called S. pombe is immune to aging when it is reproducing under favorable growth conditions. The way this works is by the yeast has to keep dividing fast enough, but also there are mechanisms in place that ensure that one half gets older and defective cell material, while the other half gets newly formed cell material which keeps it young. This is just like in humans, in a sense, that they produce offspring that is younger than the parent; but its different than in other microbes that split into two pretty equal halves. This all works perfectly under the right conditions, but the researchers also wanted to see if this still applied when the conditions were not so favorable. So the research team exposed the S. pombe to heat, ultraviolet radiation, and damaging chemicals, which affected the microbe growth so it could no longer stay young, and once exposed to these conditions the yeast cells began splitting into a younger and older half just like other cells. The researchers also stated that these findings could “potentially serve as a model of certain non-aging types of cells in humans”. It is amazing to learn that even microscopic organisms evolved powerful strategies to survive. Although this article was interesting it did not go into how exactly this could serve as a model of non-aging types of cells in humans. That left me wondering, how exactly cans this discovery help humans.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130912132005.htm

http://images.sciencedaily.com/2013/09/130912132005-large.jpg

Microbe Sex !

http://images.sciencedaily.com/2014/01/140103204500-large.jpg

Microbes have sex! Sounds pretty crazy right? Not according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Bristol have for the first time observed microbes mating. The microbes that were caught in the act belong to a strange group of protozoa. Trypanosomes are the cause of the tropical disease African sleeping sickness. African sleeping sickness causes fever, headaches, itches, and joint pains in the first stage of the sickness, and then in the second stage the parasites invade the central nervous system and disrupt the sleeping cycle which leads to trouble sleeping and that’s were the name comes from. The research teams were able to observe the microbes twirling together before they formed into one hybrid cell. And according to the scientists sex matters for the microbes because it enables them to swap genes between the different strains. Although it is really important for the microbes it can also be potentially be dangerous. This is due to a lot of harmful genes can be combined into one strain, which leads to drug resistant strains to develop. Before this discovery scientist believed that these microbes reproduced by splitting in half by binary fission.

This article was very interesting but was very brief and did not contain much scientific facts, it was like the icing on the cake. It could have gone more into depth and provide more background information about the parasite. This new information opened my eyes about protozoa and microbes; I had no idea that microorganisms had sex.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140103204500.htm