Bats act as reservoirs for over 200 viruses, many of which cause severe, often life-threatening, diseases in humans, livestock and wildlife. Examples include rabies virus, SARS and MERS coronaviruses and Ebola virus. Surprisingly many of these viruses cause asymptomatic infections in bats. In fact it has been postulated that these viral infections may even confer a benefit (as yet unknown) to the bat host. Research into the molecular and cellu...
The rapid growth of the global human population has led to an urgent need for affordable safe food. Since poultry meat can help satisfy this need the global poultry industry has experienced significant growth in recent years. Pathogenic avian viruses represent a major threat to the industry. Although a large number of viruses infect poultry, some avian viruses cause inapparent infections while others cause severe diseases with economically dev...
Exopolysaccharides produced by microorganisms are rapidly emerging as new and industrially important biomaterials. Due to their unique structures and novel functionality microbial exopolysaccharides have a myriad of commercial applications in fields ranging from agriculture and medicine to the food and pharmaceutical industries. Written by an international team of experts this authoritative volume describes the most recent and innovative resea...
The substantial costs of insect-associated viruses, ranging from honey bee decline to human, animal and plant disease, have driven investment in molecular research toward mitigation. Interest in insect viruses extends beyond these negative impacts however with biotechnological insect virus-based tools used to produce recombinant proteins, for gene therapy, vaccine production, and virus-induced gene silencing. The volume opens with a descriptio...
Prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are fatal neurological diseases that include, for example, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) in humans and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle. Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2013 significant progress has been made in advanced prion research creating a need for this timely revised and updated edition. The book opens with an introductory ch...
The global population has quadrupled over the last century leading to an increased demand for affordable safe food. Satisfying this demand will not be easy and will require even more widespread use of intensive farming practices. However intensive farming practices can lead to higher probabilities of outbreaks of a variety of viral diseases, a critical concern in terms of food protection and food security. In the case of the pig industry there...
The human microbiota consists of a diverse collection of microbes including bacteria, archaea, viruses and eukaryotes. These organisms carry out a variety of functions that are vital to human health and well-being. One example is the prevention of bacterial infections by commensal bacterial in the gut. In recent years research has demonstrated a link between imbalances in the gut microbiota in early life and the development of obesity and alle...
Lactobacillus is a highly phylogenetically and metabolically diverse genus comprising more than 200 species. As food-grade microorganisms, lactobacilli have long been exploited in the feed, food and beverage industries, with applications ranging from extending the shelf-life of food products to their use as probiotics with health-promoting properties. In addition lactobacilli are also important producers of industrial chemicals such as lactic ...
The rhizosphere is the part of the soil directly influenced by the root system. It is intensively colonised by microorganisms and represents an environmental hot-spot in which the interactions between organisms reach a very complex level. There is a great deal of interest in understanding and manipulating these interactions with a view to development of new agricultural strategies and plant protection practices. In recent years the application...
Viral diseases of crop plants cause significant yield and economic losses and this poses a major threat to global food security. To make matters worse there are no effective antiviral chemicals available and, although naturally resistant host genotypes exist, they are so rare that conventional breeding techniques cannot be used reliably to create resistant plants. The most effective option to combat phytopathogenic viruses is through biotechno...
Over the last fifteen years a large collection of protozoan parasite genomes have been sequenced, annotated and made available on public databases. This wealth of information has stimulated and fuelled new research into vaccine and drug discovery, new approaches for high-throughput experimentation and the genetic engeneering of key protozoan parasites. In this timely book expert international authors review the current hot-topics in this area ...
Cyanobacteria constitute a substantial part of an oceanic phytoplankton and continue supplying the atmosphere with oxygen at the amounts comparable to those produced by higher plants of forests and fields. Compared with studying photosynthesis in plants, the major advantage of cyanobacteria is their relative simplicity and ease of manipulation. This makes cyanobacteria the ideal model organisms, not only to study photosynthesis but also the bi...
Viruses of microorganisms (VoMs) are the world's most abundant viruses. There are viruses for every known microbe and VoMs are usually described in terms of their hosts as algal viruses, archaeal viruses, bacteriophages, virophages, fungal viruses and protozoan viruses. A key feature of infection by VoMs is that they often kill the host. This allows VoMs to play a key role in modifying microbial communities and in nutrient cycling in various e...
Escherichia coli is an important member of the normal healthy microbiome of humans and other mammals. In addition, some strains are thought to be probiotic, and therefore beneficial to the host. However, other strains of E. coli have evolved into highly versatile, and frequently deadly, pathogens: the resultant diseases causing significant economic loss and public health burdens worldwide. Recent studies have shown that the E. coli genome has ...
