Live to cheat another day: bacterial dormancy facilitates the social exploitation of beta-lactamases

The breakdown of antibiotics by β-lactamases may be cooperative, since resistant cells can detoxify their environment and facilitate the growth of susceptible neighbours. However, previous studies of this phenomenon have used artificial bacterial vectors or engineered bacteria to increase the secretion of β-lactamases from cells. Here, we investigated whether a broad-spectrum β-lactamase gene carried by a naturally occurring plasmid (pCT) is cooperative under a range of conditions. In ordinary batch culture on solid media, there was little or no evidence that resistant bacteria could protect susceptible cells from ampicillin, although resistant colonies could locally detoxify this growth medium. However, when susceptible cells were inoculated at high densities, late-appearing phenotypically susceptible bacteria grew in the vicinity of resistant colonies. We infer that persisters, cells that have survived antibiotics by undergoing a period of dormancy, founded these satellite colonies. The number of persister colonies was positively correlated with the density of resistant colonies and increased as antibiotic concentrations decreased. We argue that detoxification can be cooperative under a limited range of conditions: if the toxins are bacteriostatic rather than bacteridical; or if susceptible cells invade communities after resistant bacteria; or if dormancy allows susceptible cells to avoid bactericides. Resistance and tolerance were previously thought to be independent solutions for surviving antibiotics. Here, we show that these are interacting strategies: the presence of bacteria adopting one solution can have substantial effects on the fitness of their neighbours

Autobiographical Reflections with Glossary

Autobiographical Reflections is a window into the mind of a man whose reassessment of the nature of history and thought has overturned traditional approaches to, and appraisals of, the Western intellectual tradition. Here we encounter the motivations for Voegelin\u27s work, the stages in the development of his unique philosophy of consciousness, his key intellectual breakthroughs, his theory of history, and his diagnosis of the political ills of the modern age. Included in this revised volume is a glossary of terms used in Voegelin\u27s writings. The glossary lists, defines, and illustrates from the author\u27s writings many of the key terms employed, paying particular attention to the Greek terms. Together, the glossary and enlarged index systematically include names, subjects, ideas, writings, and terms, making this volume an indispensable help for any serious study of Eric Voegelin\u27s oeuvre.https://repository.lsu.edu/facultybooks/1445/thumbnail.jp

Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America

As debates rage over the place of faith in our national life, Tocqueville\u27s nineteenth-century crediting of religion for shaping America is largely overlooked today. Now, in Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America, Ellis Sandoz reveals the major role that Protestant Christianity played in the formation and early period of the American republic. Sandoz traces the rise of republican government from key sources in Protestant civilization, paying particular attention to the influence of the Bible on the Founders and the blossoming of the American mind in the eighteenth century. Sandoz analyzes the religious debt of the emergent American community and its elevation of the individual person as unique in the eyes of the Creator. He shows that the true distinction of American republicanism lies in its grounding of human dignity in spiritual individualism and an understanding of man\u27s capacity for self-government under providential guidance. Along the way, he addresses such topics as the neglected question of the education of the Founders for their unique endeavor, common law constitutionalism, the place of Latin and Greek classics in the Founders\u27 thought, and the texture of religious experience from the Great Awakening to the Declaration of Independence To establish a unifying theoretical perspective for his study, Sandoz considers the philosophical underpinnings of religion and the contribution that Eric Voegelin made to our understanding of religious experience. He contributes fresh studies of the character of Voegelin\u27s thought: its relationship to Christianity; his debate with Leo Strauss over reason, revelation, and the meaning of philosophy; and the theory of Gnosticism as basic to radical modernity. He also provides a powerful account of the spirit of Voegelin\u27s later writings, contrasting the political scientist with the meditative spiritualist and offering new insight into volume 5 of Order and History . Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America concludes with timely reflections on the epoch now unfolding in the shadow of Islamic jihadism. Bringing a wide range of materials into a single volume, it confronts current academic concerns with religion while offering new insight into the construction of the American polity--and the heart of Americanism as we know it today.https://repository.lsu.edu/facultybooks/1565/thumbnail.jp

Autobiographical Reflections

The thirty-fourth volume of The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin consists of Voegelin\u27s Autobiographical Reflections , reprinted from the 1989 edition with additional annotations; a glossary of terms used in Voegelin\u27s writings, illustrated with examples from throughout the Collected Works ; a volume index; and a cumulative index. The last covers the entire edition, apart from The History of Political Ideas, which has its own index, and volumes 29 and 30, the Selected Correspondence , which are at present not published. The glossary lists, defines, and illustrates from the author\u27s writings many of the key terms employed, paying particular attention to the Greek terms. The cumulative index supplies a more comprehensive access to the contents of the entire Collected Works. Together, the glossary and index systematically include names, subjects, ideas, writings, and terms, making this culminating volume an indispensable help for any serious study of Eric Voegelin\u27s oeuvre.https://repository.lsu.edu/facultybooks/1538/thumbnail.jp

A tide of discontent: The 1980 elections and their meaning

Washington, DCxiv, 254 p.; 23 c