Good guys and bad guys share tactics.Both members of a microbial odd couple--the brucellosis brucellosis (br  'səlō`sĭs) or Bang's disease, infectious disease of farm animals that is sometimes transmitted to humans. pathogen and a symbiotic bacteriumin plants--depend on the same gene to settle into their hosts. The discovery raises hopes for a vaccine to protect people from brucellosis, say Kristin LeVier of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Sloan School of Management has notable programs in business, and her colleagues in the March 31 SCIENCE. The hard-to-treat disease wracks people with fever and causes abortion in livestock. Vigilance has nearly stamped out U.S. cases, except among Yellowstone bison and elk. However, brucellosis still troubles other countries. At the other end of the usefulness spectrum, Rhizobium rhi·zo·bi·um n. pl. rhi·zo·bi·a Any of various nitrogen-fixing bacteria of the genus Rhizobium that form nodules on the roots of leguminous plants, such as clover and beans. meliloti settles into nodules Nodules A small mass of tissue in the form of a protuberance or a knot that is solid and can be detected by touch. Mentioned in: Leprosy on legume legume (lĕ`gy m, lĭgy roots and converts atmospheric nitrogen into the form that plants need. Earlier work showed that R. meliloti invades cells but can't establish itself without the bacA gene. LeVier and her colleagues found that Brucella abortus with defective bacA enters mouse cells but can't create a chronic infection. |
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