IMAGE: An illustration of tailocins, and their altruistic action painted by author Vivek Mutalik s daughter, Antara.
Image:
Antara Mutalik
Imagine there are arrows that are lethal when fired on your enemies yet harmless if they fall on your friends. It s easy to see how these would be an amazing advantage in warfare, if they were real. However, something just like these arrows does indeed exist, and they are used in warfare . just on a different scale.
These weapons are called tailocins, and the reality is almost stranger than fiction. Tailocins are extremely strong protein nanomachines made by bacteria, explained Vivek Mutalik, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) who studies tailocins and phages, the bacteria-infecting viruses that tailocins appear to be remnants of. They look like phages but they don t have the capsid, which is the head of the phage that contains the viral DNA and replication machinery. So, they re like a sprin
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Are Gut Microbes the Key to Unlocking Anxiety?
The prevalence of anxiety disorders, already the most common mental illness in many countries, including the U.S., has surged during the novel coronavirus pandemic. A study led by researchers in Berkeley Lab’s Biosciences Area provides evidence that taking care of our gut microbiome may help mitigate some of that anxiety.
The team used a genetically heterogeneous lineage of mice known as the Collaborative Cross (CC) to probe connections among genes, gut microbiome composition, and anxiety-like behavior. They first categorized 445 mice across 30 CC strains as high or low anxiety based on their behavior in the light/dark box assay: a box with two compartments – one transparent and illuminated, the other black and un-illuminated – connected by an opening. The degree to which rodents’ innate aversion to brightly lit, open spaces supersedes (or doesn’t) their instinct to explore a novel environment is a rough analog for high (or
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Are Gut Microbes Key to Unlocking Anxiety?
A scanning electron micrograph of Escherichia coli, which are one of many strains of bacteria found in mammalian guts. (Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health)
The prevalence of anxiety disorders, already the most common mental illness in many countries, including the U.S., has surged during the novel coronavirus pandemic. A study led by researchers in Berkeley Lab’s Biosciences Area provides evidence that taking care of our gut microbiome may help mitigate some of that anxiety.
The team used a genetically heterogeneous lineage of mice known as the Collaborative Cross (CC) to probe connections among genes, gut microbiome composition, and anxiety-like behavior. They first categorized 445 mice across 30 CC strains as high or low anxiety based on their behavior in the light/dark box assay: a box with two compartments – one transparent and illuminated, the other black and un