During the past two decades, the technological progress of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) had changed the fields of Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology, and, currently, is changing the underlying principles, approaches, and fundamentals of Public Health, Epidemiology, Health Economics, and national productivity. Today’s WGS technologies are able to compete with conventional techniques in cost, speed, accuracy, and resolution for day-to-day control of infectious diseases and outbreaks in clinical laboratories and in long-term epidemiological investigations. WGS gives rise to an exciting future direction for personalized Genomic Epidemiology. One of the most vital and growing public health problems is the emerging and re-emerging of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial infections in the communities and healthcare settings, reinforced by a decline in antimicrobial drug discovery. In recent years, retrospective analysis provided by WGS has had a great impact on the identification and tracking of MDR microorganisms in hospitals and communities. The obtained genomic data are also important for developing novel easy-to-use diagnostic assays for clinics, as well as for antibiotic and therapeutic development at both the personal and population levels. At present, this technology has been successfully applied as an addendum to the real-time diagnostic methods currently used in clinical laboratories. However, the significance of WGS for public health may increase if: (a) unified and user-friendly bioinformatics toolsets for easy data interpretation and management are established, and (b) standards for data validation and verification are developed. Herein, we review the current and future impact of this technology on diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and control of MDR infectious bacteria in clinics and on the global scale.

The basic principles of light controling by means of metasurfaces are reviewed. Metasurfaces are able to control the phase, amplitude, polarization, and frequency of radiation propagating through them. The formulation of the generalized Snell’s law is presented. Ways to realize metasurfaces using resonances and the methods of phase shift within 2 π are discussed. An overview of experiments and recent achievements in the field of the light controling by means of the metasurfaces is also presented. Possible applications of metasurfaces and further development of this paradigm are considered, too.

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Rapid and reliable diagnostics and identification of pathogenic and symbiotic bacteria are at the top of the agenda. In the first case, they are important to control and prevent crop damages, and thus reduce economic losses. In the second, it's necessary to design and monitor quality of biofertilizer to raise its effectiveness and crop capacity. Development of accurately, rapidly, technically and commercially accessible methods remains a critical problem for the bacteria with comprehensive phylogenetic structure. In this work, we investigated pathogenic Xanthomonas and Ralstonia and symbiotic Sinorhizobium. The aim of this investigation was to examine the applicability of the novel methods for phylogenetic study, identification and diagnostics of closely related species of these genera. The conventional phenotypic and genotypic (16S rRNA, gyrB) methods were applied as referents. Novel polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based approaches, single-adapter amplified fragment length polymorphism (saAFLP) and comparative analyses of hin-region and Xcc0006-0007 sequences, were first employed for the investigations. Phenotypic tests, 16S rRNA and gyrB analysis distinguished bacteria at the genus level, but failed to identify them to the species robustly. The new methods identified bacteria at the inter-species level more precisely. This identification agreed with the accepted genera's classifications. The only exceptions were X. fuscans & X. citri and X. perforance & X. euvesicatoria which clustered together. The further outcome of this study was achieved hin-region-based genus-specific PCR primers for the express-diagnostics of the genera. Summary, these new methods can be applied for genome-based phylogeny investigations and as convenient and accurate tools for identification and routine laboratory diagnostics of these comprehensive genera.

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