Volume 2 Issue 7, July 2017

In many countries, the success of misinformation, alternative facts or fake news is promoting a climate of science denial, where false claims such as vaccination causing autism can spread. Learning lessons from behavioural studies can help advocate for vaccination in the face of vaccine refusers and deniers.

RIPK3 is a well-known mediator of the necroptosis cell death pathway, which is an important antiviral defence mechanism. In an unexpected twist, RIPK3 has now been shown to also drive neuroprotective inflammation in the central nervous system during West Nile virus infection in a cell-death-independent manner.

Coenzymes serve as the catalytic core in many metabolic reactions, but despite their extensive use and intrinsic chemical reactivity, they are remarkably stable.

Plants respond to microbial attack with a lethal burst of reactive oxygen species. How then, do pathogens successfully invade plants? Unexpectedly, a link between primary metabolism and suppression of plant immunity allows the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae to grow in such a hostile environment.

Nitric oxide synthase has long been associated with control of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. However, new work reveals that instead of directing an antibacterial killing response, nitric oxide is critical for restraining granulocytic inflammation, which can provide a nutrient-rich niche for increased bacterial growth.

This Review Article discusses the physical, chemical and ecological features of the phycosphere, the microenvironment surrounding individual phytoplankton cells, and its importance during phytoplankton–bacteria interactions in aquatic ecosystems.

In this Review Article, Horvath and Barrangou describe the discovery of CRISPR–Cas systems as mechanisms of adaptive immunity in prokaryotes and explore the technological applications that have emerged from studying these molecular machines.

Magnaporthe oryzae nitronate monooxygenase NMO2 is shown to be required for prevention of damaging lipid nitration and host ROS-mediated innate immune responses in rice plants, enabling biotrophic growth of the rice blast fungus.

The S-layer structure of C. crescentus is revealed by combining the X-ray crystal structure of an S-layer protein and cryo-ET of cell stalks. The resulting model shows that the S-layer is porous and stabilized by calcium ions.

Structural characterization sheds mechanistic insights behind λN-dependent processive antitermination.

The use of mitomycin C inductions to determine the fraction of lysogenic cells in mixed natural communities is highly variable and insensitive to bacterial host density, suggesting that other methods should be developed and used to measure lysogeny.

A modified acetate-driven incomplete TCA cycle is common throughout bacterial phyla.

Salmonella Typhimurium E3 ligase LUBAC generates linear polyubiquitin patches in the ubiquitin coat that serves as a signalling platform for the recruitment of Optineurin and Nemo for xenophagy and local activation of NF-κB, respectively.

Deubiquitinase OTULIN targets linear (M1-linked) ubiquitin chain patches on cytosolic Salmonella Typhimurium to modulate NEMO, IKKα/IKKβ and NF-ĸB signalling and regulate secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and bacterial proliferation.

Plasmodium falciparum PTEF is a translation-enhancing factor that interacts with ribosomes to facilitate translation of PfEMP1–VAR2CSA, a ligand that mediates adhesion of infected red blood cells to the placenta during pregnancy-associated malaria.

Cryo-electron microscopy of the tripartite MacA–MacB–TolC multidrug transporter.

Nitric oxide deficiency promotes tuberculosis through increased neutrophilic inflammation.

Metabolomics analyses of Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae show that, unlike other metabolites, coenzymes such as pyridoxal 5'-phosphate, NAD(P), coenzyme A and flavins are long-lived in vivo and passed on over generations.

Vesicular stomatitis virus is shown to establish collective infectious units, enabling virions to enter cells as a group. This is exacerbated in host fluids, decreases virus titre, and could facilitate both viral evolution and antiviral defence.