Both members of a microbial odd couple—the brucellosis pathogen and a symbiotic bacterium in 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 and her colleagues in the March 31 Science.
The hard-to-treat disease wracks people with fever and causes abortion in livestock.
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