Volume 8 Issue 11, November 2023

Jimmy Nkaiwuatei is the Head of Research, Discovery and Innovations at Students Against Superbugs Africa, a youth-led organization tackling the problem of antimicrobial resistance through education and outreach in Africa.

Computational, molecular and structural analyses reveal the presence of bacterial histones that bind DNA to form dense, DNA-enveloping fibres in Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus.

Marine diatoms can switch from chlorophyll-based photosynthesis to rhodopsin-based phototrophy under iron-limitation conditions.

Lactulose is used to treat patients with hepatic encephalopathy but this prebiotic can also increase intestinal Bifidobacteria, thereby reducing systemic infection, growth of multidrug-resistant bacteria and mortality that often accompanies chronic liver disease.

Empowering women through citizen science, from using self-collected vaginal samples to participant input on research questions, we decoded nuances in the composition of the vaginal microbiota — thereby linking female health and lifestyle to vaginal microbiota diversity. We crafted a unique dataset that should inspire new diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities.

We used functional genomics to understand how hospital biocides impact the human pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii. Low concentrations of various biocides dissipated the membrane potential of A. baumannii, which we demonstrated could antagonize the potency of antibiotics.

Human skin organoids are susceptible to mpox virus infection and support infectious virus production. Treatment of infected skin organoids with the antiviral drug tecovirimat can inhibit infectious virus production and prevent host transcriptome rewiring. Thus, skin-organoid-based models are robust for studying mpox virus infection and testing therapeutics.

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.

Evidence for immune imprinting in humoral responses to SARS-CoV-2 is reviewed, together with implications for COVID-19 booster vaccine programmes.

Millions of people have died from SARS-CoV-2. This Review summarizes how autopsies have contributed to our understanding of disease pathology, discusses the advantages and limitations of autopsies, and outlines how they complement animal infection experiments and clinical studies.

Genomic fitness profiling of Acinetobacter baumannii treated with ten clinically relevant biocides using TraDIS reveals a common mechanism of action through dissipation of membrane potential that can promote antibiotic tolerance.

Computational, experimental and structural analyses reveal an abundant, nucleoid-associated histone and an alternative mode for DNA binding in vitro in the bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus.

Infection by Trypanosoma brucei activates ATGL-dependent lipolysis in adipocytes, which reduces tissue parasite load and increases host survival.

A multi-omics approach reveals that bifidobacteria metabolize the prebiotic lactulose to produce acetate and deconjugate bile acids, which is associated with reduced densities of drug-resistant pathogens and decreased incidences of infection in patients with liver disease.

The polar diatom Fragilariopsis cylindrus can circumvent limited chlorophyll-based photosynthesis by using a rhodopsin proton pump to fuel growth.

Mpox virus productively infects human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived skin organoids and is inhibited by tecovirimat, revealing a model system for analysis of mpox virus pathogenesis and drug screening.

Intravenous administration of the BCG vaccine protects non-human primates with pre-existing SIV infection from tuberculosis.

Analysis of metagenomes from across the globe reveals the spectrum of soil microbial functional diversity based on community aggregated traits.

Spatial organization of the Trypanosoma cruzi genome and how it affects gene expression.

Variation in infection dynamics and host cell sensing kinetics shape human antiviral response.

Sperschneider et al. generate nuclear-assigned genome assemblies for several isolates of the wheat leaf rust pathogen, Puccinia triticina, and show that repeated nuclei shuffling between clonal lineages has created global populations.

Long-read sequencing and chromatin capture methods reveal that two nuclear genomes segregate among thousands of co-existing nuclei in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

The Plasmodium falciparum transcription factor PfAP2-P is an upstream regulator of parasite blood-stage development and regulates trophozoite development, host cell remodelling, antigenic variation and pathogenicity.

Culture-independent CRISPR spacer screens enable the discovery of hundreds of viruses and mobile genetic elements infecting all known methanogenic lineages.

A citizen-science approach is used to map the vaginal microbiome of 3,345 women and identify associations with health, life-course and lifestyle factors.

Antibacterial combinations that are potent against Gram-positive bacteria are identified using an automated high-throughput screen.