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In rhizosphere microbial communities, iron competition via secreted siderophores can be used as a predictor of commensal–pathogen interactions and plant protection against infection with the pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum.
Here, using RNA sequencing and data from several cohorts, the authors find an association of the presence of inherited, chromosomally integrated human herpesvirus 6 in the placenta with a clinical diagnosis of pre-eclampsia in the mother.
This paper shows that the parasite Trypanosoma brucei is able to establish infection in flies by penetrating the protective peritrophic matrix in the fly midgut at the place of matrix secretion in the proventriculus. Such early proventricular colonization is potentiated by factors that are present in trypanosome-infected blood ingested by the flies.
Gene circuits that exploit the mutual interaction between nutrient diffusion, bacterial growth and gene regulation enable the control of microbial colony structure in complex environments.
Structures of the FimA pilin from Porphyromonasgingivalis in monomeric and polymerized states reveal the protease-mediated strand-exchange assembly mechanism of type V pili, which is a key virulence factor of this periodontal pathogen.
Streptomyces bacteria make volatile compounds such as geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol that attract springtails to bacterial colonies. The soil arthropods feed on the bacteria and help to disseminate spores via faecal pellets and through adherence to their surface.
The identification of the KinB–AlgB two-component system, known to modulate alginate biosynthesis, together with downstream proteins that repress the Type I-F CRISPR–Cas system in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, elucidates how bacteria control the expression of nucleolytic host defence systems to minimize the potential risks of self-targeting.
The crystal structure of the RodA–PBP2 complex from Thermus thermophilus elucidates how binding between these two proteins regulates their abilities to polymerize and crosslink peptidoglycan during bacterial cell wall synthesis.
Here, Rickettsia parkeri is shown to be sensitive to type I interferons (IFN-I) and IFN-γ and to benefit from inflammasome-mediated antagonism of IFN-I, highlighting similarities between the immune responses against this obligate cytosolic bacterial pathogen and those that target viral pathogens.
A combination of cellular, molecular and structural biology approaches explains how the translating ribosome and the nascent peptide SpeFL interact to form a binding pocket that serves as an ornithine sensor to regulate polyamine biosynthesis in pathogenic bacteria.
The discovery of the Factor that terminates transcription in Archaea (FttA) as a conserved archaeal protein that is able to disrupt transcription elongation complexes elucidates the mechanisms of transcription termination in these organisms.
Alternative σ factors regulate the activity of RNA polymerases under specific conditions and are regulated through various mechanisms, most of which depend on anti-σ factors to regulate their on/off status. This study reports a new mode of σ factor regulation that does not require an anti-σ factor, but instead σ factor phosphorylation in response to the presence of an antibiotic.
The autophagy proteins Beclin 1 and FIP200, but not other essential autophagy components, such as ATG5, ATG16L1 or ATG7, regulate quiescence of tissue-resident macrophages, thereby modulating immune activation and resistance to Listeria monocytogenes infection.
In an interesting demonstration of how bacterial subcellular organization influences physiology, polar accumulation of PopZ protein in a membraneless microdomain is found to drive asymmetric phosphorylation of CtrA-P, which creates a gradient that is responsible for asymmetric cell division in Caulobacter.
The use of an in vitro system in which key proteins involved in cell division are attached to supported lipid bilayers reveals that membrane-bound cytosolic peptides of FtsN and FtsQ co-migrate with treadmilling FtsZ–FtsA filaments via a diffusion-and-capture mechanism, elucidating how FtsZ dynamics regulate the distribution of peptidoglycan synthases.
This study tracks emergent ciprofloxacin-resistant Shigella sonnei in Vietnam, showing displacement of sensitive strains by others that acquired beta-lactam-antibiotic-resistance plasmids from commensal E. coli in infected individuals.
Bacterial cell wall amidases typically hydrolyse crosslinked peptidoglycan between daughter cells so they can separate. An amidase that cleaves uncrosslinked peptidoglycan and its regulator are identified here and shown to regulate cell growth, rather than separation. This enzyme regulates the density of peptidoglycan assembly sites, ensuring coordination between cell expansion and cell division.