Articles of Significant Interest Selected from This Issue by the Editors

摘要

Dust from deserts not only deposits nutrients into the oceans, which can enhance primary production, but also spreads microbial communities. Using continuous plankton recorder technology, Hallegraeff et al. (p. 33153320) showed how an Australian dust storm triggered a massive coastal fungal bloom of Aspergillus sydowii , stretching over an area 25 times the size of England. While no impacts comparable to Caribbean coral disease were observed, Australian fungal cultures reduced Symbiodinium dinoflagellate coral symbiont motility, thus raising the possibility of future marine ecosystem impacts from dust storms harboring more-pathogenic strains. Dust storms are likely to increase in number with climate change as Australia becomes drier.Lactic acid bacteria have shown significant potential as vaccine delivery vehicles, primarily through the use of plasmids that express bioactive compounds at mucosal surfaces, where they can stimulate appropriate immune responses. However, procedural problems have included antibiotic resistance and plasmid instability. In studies by Song et al. (p. 33213326), PPT expression cassettes were inserted at the upp site of the Lactobacillus casei chromosome via site-specific recombination. The plasmid was subsequently deleted by increasing the temperature. However, the antigen gene may be replicated along with the bacterial chromosomal DNA, and antigen protein was demonstrated on the surface of bacterial cells.