Volume 8 Issue 7, July 2023

Nature Microbiology and Nature Communications are issuing a joint call for papers to highlight research focused on microbiome and nutrition.

Liz Sockett recounts lessons learned by getting to know Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, a single-celled predator that invades and kills Gram-negative bacteria from within.

A combination of four phages engineered with a CRISPR–Cas payload can reduce the burden of Escherichia coli infections in animal models without inducing the host immune response.

Population genomics and functional validation show that a second parasite transporter, pfaat1, has a role in chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum.

Influenza A virus can selectively recognize and degrade host transcripts via a specific molecular motif, facilitating modulation of the host immune response.

A set of genes, including a lectin, two scavenger receptors and two actin regulators, were found to aid the early steps of coral–algal endosymbiosis, including algae recognition and uptake, in a Xenia soft coral species. The findings were made possible by using a combination of RNA interference-mediated gene knockdown, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), bioinformatics and cell biology approaches.

Oil-rich deep-sea sediments are used to culture syntrophic communities of archaea and bacteria that pair petroleum alkane oxidation to sulfide generation.

Chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum is characterized using population genomics, genetic crosses and gene editing.

Structural and biochemical analyses show how one archaeon links both sulfur reduction and methane production.

RNAi and single-cell RNA-seq characterize the mechanism of endosymbiosis between coral and dinoflagellates.

Modelling herpes simplex virus infection in brain organoids reveals that combined antiviral and anti-inflammatory treatment prevents neuronal damage caused by viral infection.

Cryo-electron tomography reveals unanticipated features of Bdellovibro predation of Gram-negative bacteria.

Multiomics reveals that sexual differentiation in human malaria parasites, which is essential for transmission, is regulated by competition between phospholipid metabolism and histone methylation.

Structural analysis reveals how a potent human monoclonal antibody neutralizes Sin Nombre virus by binding the Gn–Gc heterodimer lattice.

Endoribonuclease PA-X allows influenza A virus to discriminate between viral and host transcripts by cleaving GCUG tetramers.

Genetics and biochemical reconstitution uncover the mechanism of bacterial teichoic acid d-alanylation. This mechanism, which relies on a conserved tyrosine motif, is widespread in other cell envelope polymer acylation pathways across bacteria.

An alternative diaminopurine (Z) biosynthetic pathway using PurZ0 is found in bacteriophages and used for bacterial immune evasion, with higher structural and biochemical similarities to archaeal PurA than PurZ.

A conjugative plasmid isolated from Thermococcus enables interspecies transfer across Archaea, whether naturally competent or not, and at temperatures up to 100 °C.

The soil bacterium Streptomyces iranensis triggers the production of natural products in the fungus Aspergillus nidulans using arginine-derived polyketide signalling molecules.