The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Conditions experienced during larval development of holometabolous insects can affect adult traits, but whether differences in the bacterial communities of larval development sites contribute to variation in the ability of insect vectors to transmit human pathogens is unknown. We addressed this question in the mosquito Aedes aegypti, a major arbovirus …
Bacterial drug resistance has emerged as a serious global threat mandating the development of novel methodologies that allow facile modulation of antimicrobial action in a controlled fashion. Conjugating antibiotics to nanoparticles helps to meet this goal by increasing the drug’s overall avidity, bioavailability and easier internalisation into mammalian cells, targeting …
Agricultural use of antimicrobials in subtherapeutic concentrations is increasing in response to the rising demand for food animal products worldwide. In India, the use of antimicrobials in food animal production is unregulated. Research suggests that many clinically important antimicrobials are used indiscriminately. This is the largest study to date in …
It has been hypothesized that some antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) found in pathogenic bacteria derive from antibiotic-producing actinobacteria. Here we provide bioinformatic and experimental evidence supporting this hypothesis. We identify genes in proteobacteria, including some pathogens, that appear to be closely related to actinobacterial ARGs known to confer resistance against …
Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) is a promising antibacterial material, the efficacy of which can be further enhanced by the addition of silver nanoparticles (nAg). In this study, the mechanisms of antibacterial activity of rGO–nAg nanocomposite against several important human pathogenic multidrug resistant bacteria, namely Gram-positive coccal Staphylococcus aureus and Gram-negative …
The mobile colistin resistance gene mcr-1 has attracted global attention, as it heralds the breach of polymyxins, one of the last-resort antibiotics for the treatment of severe clinical infections caused by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. To date, six slightly different variants of mcr-1, and a second mobile colistin resistance gene, mcr-2, …
Increasing emission rate of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases is the major driver of global temperature increase. Soil microbial respiration is accelerating the release of CO2 in the environment, but the mechanistic understanding of this process is still at its nascent stage. In this note, we discuss the …
Dried plant products of North west Rajasthan which are cooked as a vegetable known as Trikuta-seeds of Acacia Senegal (L.) Willd., unripe fruits of Capparis deciduas (Forssk.) Edgew. and unripe pods of Prosopis cineraria (L.) Druce were tested against seven clinical isolates including one Gram positive and six Gram negative …
Fungi have recently been found to comprise a significant part of the deep biosphere in oceanic sediments and crustal rocks. Fossils occupying fractures and pores in Phanerozoic volcanics indicate that this habitat is at least 400 million years old, but its origin may be considerably older. A 2.4-billion-year-old basalt from …
Antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society and is driven by many interconnected factors. Single, isolated interventions have limited impact and coordinated action is required to minimize the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance. This was stated by …
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are an escalating grim menace to global public health. Our aim is to phenotype and genotype antibiotic-resistant commensal Escherichia coli (E. coli) from humans, animals, and water from the same community with a ‘one-health’ approach. Original Source
In the Salish Sea, the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) is a high trophic indicator of ecosystem health. Three major threats have been identified for this population: reduced prey availability, anthropogenic contaminants, and marine vessel disturbances. These perturbations can culminate in significant morbidity and mortality, usually associated with secondary …
Gut microbiomes play crucial roles in animal health, and shifts in the gut microbial community structure can have detrimental impacts on hosts. Studies with vertebrate models and human subjects suggest that antibiotic treatments greatly perturb the native gut community, thereby facilitating proliferation of pathogens. In fact, persistent infections following antibiotic …
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has prepared a draft Public Health (Prevention, Control and Management of epidemics, bio-terrorism and disasters) Bill, 2017 and has invited comments on the same. A Bill to provide for the prevention, control and management of epidemics, public health consequences of disasters, acts …
The system of the bacterium Escherichia coli and its virus, bacteriophage lambda, is paradigmatic for gene regulation in cell-fate development, yet insight about its mechanisms and complexities are limited due to insufficient resolution of study. Here we develop a 4-colour fluorescence reporter system at the single-virus level, combined with computational …
Very little is known about the ancient origin of retroviruses, but owing to the discovery of their ancient endogenous viral counterparts, their early history is beginning to unfold. Here we report 36 lineages of basal amphibian and fish foamy-like endogenous retroviruses (FLERVs). Phylogenetic analyses reveal that ray-finned fish FLERVs exhibit …
Extreme ecosystems such as hot springs are of great interest as a source of novel extremophilic species, enzymes, metabolic functions for survival and biotechnological products. India harbors hundreds of hot springs, the majority of which are not yet explored and require comprehensive studies to unravel their unknown and untapped phylogenetic …
Devising agricultural management schemes that enhance food security and soil carbon levels is a high priority for many nations. However, the coupling between agricultural productivity, soil carbon stocks and organic matter turnover rates is still unclear. Archived soil samples from four decades of a long-term crop rotation trial were analyzed …
To determine the contribution of Orientia tsutsugamushi, the agent of scrub typhus, as a cause of acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) in Assam, India, researchers conducted a retrospective study of hospital patients with symptoms of AES during 2013–2015. Our findings suggest that O. tsutsugamushi infection leads to AES and the resulting …
The Strategic and Operational Guidance presented in this document is based on expert inputs and deliberations held at the International Workshop on National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance for Developing Countries. The workshop, focusing on animal and environmental aspects, was organized by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on …
