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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2004;291:1188-1189.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Scientists have unveiled details of how a unique microbe seeks and destroys a variety of plant and animal pathogens, findings that offer clues for new weapons against bacterial infections.

By sequencing the entire genome of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus and analyzing its life cycle, researchers in Germany are now able to describe the molecular mechanisms used by these predatory bacteria, including those involving many novel antimicrobial enzymes (Science. 2004;303:689-692). The authors suggest their findings could be used to design new antibiotics.

"We are trying to identify those enzymes that have lytic or antimicrobial capabilities. We believe this is in the range of about 250. And they could be used either by themselves or as a cocktail to contain certain bacterial infections," said principal investigator Stephan Schuster, PhD, of the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology, in Tübingen.

The wide variety of B bacteriovorus lytic enzymes that Schuster and colleagues . . . [Full Text of this Article]