Perspectives

Choi, Jung and Lee highlight ways to produce renewable microbial foods that could move us closer to carbon neutrality.

This Perspective discusses how viral infections can change inflammation and bone metabolism, leading to diseases.

This Perspective discusses the prevalence of synergistic metabolic interactions in nature and their impact on microbial communities.

Evolution of Omicron lineages and future evolutionary trajectories of SARS-CoV-2 are discussed.

An outline of best practices, resources and suggested improvements to ensure that the complexities inherent to microbial big data do not hamper accessibility.

This Perspective argues that microbiome ownership needs to be considered in microbiome research involving Indigenous peoples.

A framework centred on relationality among Indigenous peoples, researchers and microorganisms is presented, to guide ethical microbiome research.

Walker and Hoyles highlight selected myths and misconceptions in the human microbiota literature.

Therapeutics for COVID-19 and their development during a pandemic are reviewed, including future prospects for anticoronavirals.

The authors argue that the virome of the last eukaryotic common ancestor is bacterial, rather than archaeal, providing support for a syntrophic model of eukaryogenesis with two endosymbiosis events.

An argument for how anaerobic eukaryotes have maintained cellular complexity over evolutionary time, despite reliance on the low energy-yielding fermentation.

In this Perspective, the authors discuss the importance and current challenges of using genomic data to predict the emergence of infectious disease outbreaks, and propose the next steps to integrate genomics and modelling for infectious diseases forecasting.

Efforts to futureproof global microbial biodiversity are proposed, in particular in managed landscapes, to monitor, manage and restore the soil fungal microbiome.

Careful and responsible microbiome management is a critical strategy to counter biodiversity loss, but practical and regulatory hurdles must be addressed to maximize its utility.

Studying the ocean microbiome can inform international policies related to ocean governance, tackling climate change, ocean acidification and pollution, and can help promote achievement of multiple Sustainable Development Goals.

Specific actions to develop equitable partnerships in microbiome research are proposed.

Metagenomics-based surveillance could transform global efforts to detect risks to human health within a One Health framework.

Gut microbiome development in full-term infants has important implications for health and disease, but less is known for preterm infants. Here the authors summarize current knowledge in preterm infants, compare this to what is known for full-term babies, and discuss potential diagnostics and interventions to improve outcomes for preterm infants.

A network science framework for understanding and predicting human and animal susceptibility to viral infections is proposed.

This Perspective discusses current knowledge of the complex crosstalk between the microbiota and γδ T cells and future outlooks.