This book provides a comprehensive overview of pertussis - also known as whooping cough. The first part discusses the evolution the genus Bordetellae and the molecular epidemiology of B. pertussis, while the following chapters focus on the role of B. pertussis virulence factors in infection and disease and on the mechanisms of the immune response to infection and vaccination. The book also explores the prevention and control of the disease as well as its clinical management, with the finally section addressing vaccination, from improved immunization strategies to novel vaccines. Pertussis remains one of the most poorly controlled vaccine-preventable diseases around the globe. Universal vaccination has dramatically reduced its incidence but has failed to bring it completely under control. In recent decades, changes in pertussis epidemiology have been noted, likely related to the use of acellular pertussis vaccines, which in many countries have replaced older-generation, whole-cell pertussis vaccines. Several years after their introduction, it is becoming apparent that immunity conferred by acellular vaccines wanes more rapidly than expected. Unlike whole-cell vaccines, acellular vaccines, while protecting against the disease, do not seem to prevent colonization and transmission. Increasing incidence among adolescents and adults makes them a reservoir for transmission to unimmunized infants, who in turn are at risk of severe disease and death. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and clinicians in the field of medical microbiology, vaccine research and infectious diseases.

Echinococcus and Echinococcosis Part A and B present a complete synthesis on what is known about the parasitic cestode echinococcus and the disease it causes, echinococcosis (Hydatid Disease), also demonstrating that in addition to its medical, veterinary, and economic significance, it is an intriguing biological phenomenon. Both parts build on the success of a previous volume, Echinococcus and Hydatid Disease, edited by R.C.A. Thompson and A.J. Lymbery, and published by CAB International, that details the major advances that have taken place since its release. As such, it remains the only comprehensive account that embraces virtually all aspects of echinococcus and the disease it causes. The links between laboratory knowledge and field applications are emphasized throughout the volumes. Consequently, research workers, teachers, students of parasitology, clinicians, and field workers will find this work an indispensable source of information.

Autophagy: Cancer, Other Pathologies, Inflammation, Immunity, Infection, and Aging is an eleven volume series that discusses in detail all aspects of autophagy machinery in the context of health, cancer, and other pathologies. Autophagy maintains homeostasis during starvation or stress conditions by balancing the synthesis of cellular components and their deregulation by autophagy. This series discusses the characterization of autophagosome-enriched vaccines and its efficacy in cancer immunotherapy. Autophagy serves to maintain healthy cells, tissues, and organs, but also promotes cancer survival and growth of established tumors. Impaired or deregulated autophagy can also contribute to disease pathogenesis. Understanding the importance and necessity of the role of autophagy in health and disease is vital for the studies of cancer, aging, neurodegeneration, immunology, and infectious diseases. Comprehensive and forward-thinking, these books offer a valuable guide to cellular processes while also inciting researchers to explore their potentially important connections.

Nitrogen fixation research is presented as a rapidly developing, synergistic area of modern science, using the methods of, and accumulating data from, many fundamental branches of biology and chemistry. These include catalytic mechanisms, protein structure and function, molecular organization of genes and the regulation of their activities, biochemistry of plants and microorganisms, the signalling and surface interactions between organisms, microbial taxonomy and evolution, formal and population genetics, and ecology. The relationships between biological nitrogen fixation research and different branches of applied biology are addressed and analyzed, such as: the monitoring of genetically engineered microorganisms, selection of plant-associated microbes, plant breeding, increasing the protein content of crops, providing ecologically safe food production, and diminishing the chemical pollution of the environment. Immediate impacts and long-term prospects for nitrogen fixation research are presented: both fundamentals and applications.

Iron is essential for almost all living organisms as it is involved in a wide variety of important metabolic processes. However, iron is not readily available and microorganisms therefore employ various iron uptake systems to secure sufficient supplies from their surroundings. There is considerable variation in the range of iron transporters and iron sources utilized by different microbial species. Pathogens, in particular, require efficient iron acquisition mechanisms to enable them to compete successfully for iron in the highly iron-restricted environment of the host's tissues and body fluids. In this book, an international team of authors presents a comprehensive collection of reviews on iron uptake and metabolism in various microorganisms, including Rhizobia, Bordetella, Shigella, E. coli, Erwinia, Vibrio, Aeromonas, Francisella, Bacteroides, Campylobacter, Cyanobacteria, Bacillus, Staphylococci, and yeasts. An entire chapter is dedicated to siderophores and another to heme uptake.

Advances in Applied Microbiology continues to be one of the most widely read and authoritative review sources in microbiology, containing comprehensive reviews of the most current research in applied microbiology. Users will find invaluable references and information on a variety of areas, including protozoan grazing of freshwater biofilms, metals in yeast fermentation processes, the interpretation of host-pathogen dialogue through microarrays, and the role of polyamines in bacterial growth and biofilm formation. Eclectic volumes are supplemented by thematic volumes on various topics, including Archaea and sick building syndrome.

Mathematic Modelling: Improving the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation of Interventions, Part B, the latest volume in the Advances in Parasitology series contains comprehensive and up-to-date reviews in the field of mathematic modeling and its implementation within parasitology. The series includes medical studies of parasites of major influence, such as Plasmodium falciparum and trypanosomes, along with reviews of more traditional areas, such as zoology, taxonomy, and life history, all of which shape current thinking and applications.

The Norovirus: Features, Detection and Prevention of Foodborne Disease is a unique and valuable reference for both researchers in industry and students who need to understand how this specific pathogen behaves in order to improve control of food as a transmission of this infectious biological agent. The information in the book provides essential, specific information to help further understand potential new strains of the pathogen, offering detection analysis and prevention strategies of the pathogen to assist in combatting the spread of foodborne illness. Written by national and international experts in the field, this book will be a practical source of information for food scientists, food microbiologists, food technologists, food industry workers, public health workers, and students.

Advances in Microbial Physiology continues the long tradition of topical and important, cutting-edge reviews in microbiology.

This book highlights important aspects of food biotechnology. It is very thoughtfully divided into five sections. The first section introduces the readers to food biotechnology and discusses functional foods, use of plant and animal biotechnology in improving food quality. The second section deals with food microbiology and includes topics such as application of microbial surfactants, use of probiotics, beneficial microorganisms used in food industry etc. The third section describes important macro and micromolecules in foods. It includes chapters on food enzymes, gluten free formulations, use of biopolymers, biofortification of food and other important topics. The next section discusses novel technologies such as use of nanotechnology in food industry, reverse micelle techniques, genome editing in food crops etc. The book culminates with a section on food quality and management. It describes important topics about biosafety and regulatory issues in food biotechnology. This book is meant for students, researchers and course instructors in food science, food technology and biotechnology. It is also useful for industry experts in the area of food technology.

Microbiorobotics is a new engineering discipline that inherently involves a multidisciplinary approach (mechanical engineering, cellular biology, mathematical modeling, control systems, synthetic biology, etc). Building robotics system in the micro scale is an engineering task that has resulted in many important applications, ranging from micromanufacturing techniques to cellular manipulation. However, it is also a very challenging engineering task. One of the reasons is because many engineering ideas and principles that are used in larger scales do not scale well to the micro-scale. For example, locomotion principles in a fluid do not function in the same way, and the use of rotational motors is impractical because of the difficulty of building of the required components.

The interaction of microorganisms with geological activities results in processes influencing development of the Earth's geo- and biospheres. In assessing these microbial functions, scientists have explored short- and longterm geological changes attributed to microorganisms and developed new approaches to evaluate the physiology of microbes including microbial interaction with the geological environment. As the field of geomicrobiology developed, it has become highly interdisciplinary and this book provides a review of the recent developments in a cross section of topics including origin of life, microbial-mineral interactions and microbial processes functioning in marine as well as terrestrial environments. A major component of this book addresses molecular techniques to evaluate microbial evolution and assess relationships of microbes in complex, natural c- munities. Recent developments in so-called 'omics' technologies, including (meta) genomics and (meta)proteomics, and isotope labeling methods allow new insights into the function of microbial community members and their possible geological impact. While this book summarizes current knowledge in various areas, it also reveals unresolved questions that require future investigations. Information in these chapters enhances our fundamental knowledge of geomicrobiology that contributes to the exploitation of microbial functions in mineral and environmental biotechn- ogy applications. It is our hope that this book will stimulate interest in the general field of geomicrobiology and encourage others to explore microbial processes as applied to the Earth.

Several fundamental advances were announced at the Seventh International Symposium on Molecular Plant--Microbe Interactions held in Edinburgh in 1994. These included the cloning and identification of plant resistance genes involved in recognition of pathogens; the description of genetically engineered plants with novel resistance to pathogens; characterization of the molecular basis of pathogenicity of fungal and bacterial plant pathogens; and the mechanisms of communication used during recognition between symbiotic rhizobia and their host legumes. Participants in the Symposium contributed a series of papers that represent the leading edge of research in this important area of plant and microbial science. These articles are brought together to form this book, which will be essential reading for research workers, advanced students and others interested in keeping abreast of this rapidly developing area.

To date textbooks on viruses infecting fish, crustaceans and molluscs, the three main aquatic animal farmed groups, have been on the whole "diseases-centric" and individual viral diseases selected based on "epizoo-centric" approaches with little to no coverage of the basic biology of the viruses, in contrast to textbooks on viruses infecting terrestrial - farmed, pet, and free-range (wild) - animals and humans. Despite considerable advances in animal virology in recent years coupled with an economically important global aquaculture industry, knowledge of viruses of animal aquaculture is still sparse and in some cases outdated although these viruses are closely related to well-known virus families. The last book in fish virology (Fish viruses and fish viral diseases 1988, Wolf, K.) was published in the 1980s. A lot of work has been done on fish viruses and many new aquatic animal viruses continue to be discovered. Aquaculture Virology provides the current state of knowledge of aquatic animal viruses within the current virus classification and taxonomic context thereby allowing the reader to draw on the principles of general virology. This book is a systematic and concise resource useful to anyone involved with or looking to move into aquaculture and fisheries. Clinical veterinarians, aquaculture disease practitioners, biologists, farmers, and all those in industry, government or academia who are interested in aquatic animal virology will find this book extremely useful.

Statistical Aspects of the Microbiological Examination of Foods, Third Edition, updates some important statistical procedures following intensive collaborative work by many experts in microbiology and statistics, and corrects typographic and other errors present in the previous edition. Following a brief introduction to the subject, basic statistical concepts and procedures are described including both theoretical and actual frequency distributions that are associated with the occurrence of microorganisms in foods. This leads into a discussion of the methods for examination of foods and the sources of statistical and practical errors associated with the methods. Such errors are important in understanding the principles of measurement uncertainty as applied to microbiological data and the approaches to determination of uncertainty. The ways in which the concept of statistical process control developed many years ago to improve commercial manufacturing processes can be applied to microbiological examination in the laboratory. This is important in ensuring that laboratory results reflect, as precisely as possible, the microbiological status of manufactured products through the concept and practice of laboratory accreditation and proficiency testing. The use of properly validated standard methods of testing and the verification of 'in house' methods against internationally validated methods is of increasing importance in ensuring that laboratory results are meaningful in relation to development of and compliance with established microbiological criteria for foods. The final chapter of the book reviews the uses of such criteria in relation to the development of and compliance with food safety objectives. Throughout the book the theoretical concepts are illustrated in worked examples using real data obtained in the examination of foods and in research studies concerned with food safety.

Regulatory networks enable bacteria to adapt to almost every environmental niche on Earth. Regulation is achieved by a network of interactions among diverse types of molecules, including DNA, RNA, proteins, and metabolites. The primary role of regulatory networks in bacteria is to control the response to environmental changes, such as nutritional status and environmental stress. A complex organization of networks allows the organism to coordinate and integrate multiple environmental signals. This book contains authoritative, up-to-date reviews of the current research and theories on regulatory networks in bacteria. The book includes critical reviews written by the leading research scientists in this topical field. The contributors fully explore various regulatory networks, discuss variations of common themes, and provide fresh insights into bacterial regulatory mechanisms. Topics include: the sigma network in Escherichia coli * the control of bacterial virulence * ECF sigma factors * quorum sensing * cyclic di-GMP * RNA-mediated regulation * the H-NS regulator * two-component regulatory systems * bacterial chemotaxis * the regulation of iron homeostasis * anaerobic regulatory networks * bacterial bistable regulatory networks * the evolution of transcription factors and regulatory networks. This book will be essential reading for everyone interested in gene expression and the regulation in bacteria. It is a recommended text for all microbiology libraries.

Haemonchus Contortus and Haemonchosis - Past, Present and Future Trends, the latest in the Advances in Parasitology series first published in 1963, contains comprehensive and up-to-date reviews on all areas of interest in contemporary parasitology. The series includes medical studies of parasites of major influence, such as Plasmodium falciparum and trypanosomes. The series also contains reviews of more traditional areas, such as zoology, taxonomy, and life history, which help to shape current thinking and applications. The 2014 impact factor is 6.226.

This book series focuses on current progress in the broad field of medical microbiology, and covers both basic and applied topics related to the study of microbes, their interactions with human and animals, and emerging issues relevant for public health. Original research and review articles present and discuss multidisciplinary findings and developments on various aspects of microbiology, infectious diseases, and their diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Schistosomiasis Control, the latest edition in the Advances in Parasitology series first published in 1963, contains comprehensive and up-to-date reviews on all areas of interest in contemporary parasitology. The series includes medical studies of parasites of major influence, such as Plasmodium falciparum and trypanosomes. The series also contains reviews of more traditional areas, such as zoology, taxonomy, and life history, which help to shape current thinking and applications. The 2014 impact factor is 6.226, with a thematic issue focus on Schistosomiasis Control.

The purpose of this and future volumes of the Handbook of Genetics is to bring together a collection of relatively short, authoritative essays or annotated compilations of data on topics of significance to geneticists. Many of the essays will deal with various aspects of the biology of certain species selected because they are favorite subjects for genetic investigation in nature or the laboratory. Often there will be an encyclopedic amount of information available on such a species, with new papers appearing daily. Most of these will be written for specialists in a jargon that is be wildering to a novice, and sometimes even to a veteran geneticist working with evolutionarily distant organisms. For such readers what is needed is a written introduction to the morphology, life cycle, reproductive be havior, and culture methods for the species in question. What are its par ticular advantages (and disadvantages) for genetic study, and what have we learned from it? Where are the classic papers, the key bibliographies, and how does one get stocks of wild type or mutant strains? The chapters devoted to different species will contain information of this sort. Only a few hundreds of the millions of species available to biologists have been subjected to detailed genetic study. However, those that have make up a very heterogeneous sample of the living world."

Quorum sensing (QS) describes a chemical communication behavior that is nearly universal among bacteria. Individual cells release a diffusible small molecule (an autoinducer) into their environment. A high concentration of this autoinducer serves as a signal of high population density, triggering new patterns of gene expression throughout the population. However QS is often much more complex than this simple census-taking behavior. Many QS bacteria produce and detect multiple autoinducers, which generate quorum signal cross talk with each other and with other bacterial species. QS gene regulatory networks respond to a range of physiological and environmental inputs in addition to autoinducer signals. While a host of individual QS systems have been characterized in great molecular and chemical detail, quorum communication raises many fundamental quantitative problems which are increasingly attracting the attention of physical scientists and mathematicians. Key questions include: What kinds of information can a bacterium gather about its environment through QS? What physical principles ultimately constrain the efficacy of diffusion-based communication? How do QS regulatory networks maximize information throughput while minimizing undesirable noise and cross talk? How does QS function in complex, spatially structured environments such as biofilms? Previous books and reviews have focused on the microbiology and biochemistry of QS. With contributions by leading scientists and mathematicians working in the field of physical biology, this volume examines the interplay of diffusion and signaling, collective and coupled dynamics of gene regulation, and spatiotemporal QS phenomena. Chapters will describe experimental studies of QS in natural and engineered or microfabricated bacterial environments, as well as modeling of QS on length scales spanning from the molecular to macroscopic. The book aims to educate physical scientists and quantitative-oriented biologists on the application of physics-based experiment and analysis, together with appropriate modeling, in the understanding and interpretation of the pervasive phenomenon of microbial quorum communication."

The book covers different techniques and methodologies involved in the nutritional quality analysis of forages. It also discusses the nutritional quality, anti-nutritional components, factors affecting forage quality, feed processing and conservation. Different techniques and methodologies have been presented in a simplified manner. The book has been divided in separate chapters and each chapter discusses different aspect of forage quality. Further, the book also covers the topics on conservation and processing of forages and management techniques for improving the forage nutritional quality. This book is an essential source of information for research scholars, post-graduate students and scientists working on forage quality estimation and also in livestock and dairy industries.

First published in 1963, Advances in Parasitology contains comprehensive and up-to-date reviews on all areas of interest in contemporary parasitology. The series includes medical studies of parasites of major influence, such as Plasmodium falciparum and trypanosomes. The series also contains reviews of more traditional areas, such as zoology, taxonomy, and life history, which help to shape current thinking and applications. The 2014 impact factor is 6.226.

Sustainable Horticulture: Microbial Inoculants and Stress Interaction gives insights into the applications and formulations of microbial inoculants. In recent years, the optimum yields of horticultural plants largely influenced by rising global temperature, biotic stress (attack of pathogens) and abiotic stresses has created extra pressure for the horticulturalist to meet the need of optimum yield production for the burgeoning global population. However, the challenges of biotic and abiotic stress factors mitigated by traditional physical or chemicals methods include high application cost and adverse impact on quality limit the frequent use, hence the solutions in this book create new avenues for progress. This book covers those challenges and how microbial based bio inoculants are broadly used in horticulture to mitigate the challenges of biotic and abiotic stresses. It provides an important contribution on how to apply efficient beneficial microbes (microbial inoculants) for a sustainable society.

bacterial carbohydrate recognition are conveyed, covering Gram-positive as well as Gram-negative bacteria, in Chapter 4 Streptococci and Staphylococci, and in Chapter 5, carbohydrate binding specificities of Helicobacter pylori. In Chapter 6, "Bitter sweetness of complexity," the collected reflections on mic- bial adhesion are expanded by a perspective on a broader impact of glycosylation on cellular adhesion, motility and regulatory processes, paralleling the complexity of N-glycan structures on cell surfaces. It highlights particularly how structural details of N-glycans have been causally related to pathological scenarios, with a focus on ?(1,6)-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase. In the final chapter, biofilm formation is reviewed, covering knowledge about structure and biosynthesis of polysaccharide intercellular adhesins (PIAs) which are central to biofilm formation. This comprehensive chapter explains all PIA-related principles of medical device-associated infections. It is our hope, that this collection of expert articles, ranging from structural ch- istry and structural biology to biochemistry and medicine, will be a stimulation and motivation for our colleagues in the life sciences. At the same time, we hope that these reflections on microbial adhesion will awake interest in and promote und- standing of the complex processes associated with the glycocalyx and the multif- eted interactions between the host cell and its "guest," as well as the biological consequences resulting from this mutual interplay.