Volume 9 Issue 1, January 2024

Jennifer Claire Hoving draws a picture of her personal and scientific journey leading her to study of Emergomyces africanus, an emerging fungal pathogen in Africa.

Improving HIV interventions for men could reduce HIV acquisition in women, close the growing gender gap in HIV infections and further reduce HIV incidence in African countries.

Bacteroides fragilis employs two different mechanisms, secreted microbe- and host-targeting toxins, that facilitate successful colonization of the mammalian gastrointestinal tract.

The antimicrobial agent epifadin, which is produced by the nasal commensal Staphylococcus epidermidis, has— despite its short half-life — broad-spectrum activity, including against Staphylococcus aureus.

The placenta nourishes the foetus and supports its development and growth. Our study now identifies the placenta as a potential route for foetal infection with Streptococcus agalactiae (group B Streptococcus), as indicated by an exaggerated in utero inflammatory response and poor perinatal outcome when group B Streptococcus is detected in the placenta.

This Review discusses our current understanding of Toxoplasma protein export into host cells and how this process impacts infection.

The agrochemical fungicide ipflufenoquin can drive cross-resistance to the clinical antifungal olorofim in Aspergillus fumigatus in vitro.

Longitudinal population-based surveillance identifies shifts in HIV transmission patterns related to age and sex, suggesting that HIV programmes to increase HIV suppression in men are crucial to reduce incidence in women.

Three distinct families of gut bacteria encode an unprecedented number of respiratory-like reductases per genome to perform anaerobic respiration of biomedically relevant substrates.

The Bacteroides fragilis ubiquitin homologue, BfUbb, mediates intraspecies competition and provides a competitive advantage for encoding strains in the gut.

Bacteroides fragilis toxin expression induces goblet cell and goblet-cell-associated passage development during the pre-weaning period in mice, enabling B. fragilis to access a privileged lamina propria niche and evade competition with gut lumen bacteria.

This work reveals a mechanism of cGAS- and STING-dependent type I IFN induction in response to biofilm-associated Candida albicans DNA packaged in extracellular vesicles.

Enterococcus strains harbour a plasmid-encoded defence against reuterin, a toxin produced by Limosilactobacillus reuteri, mediating a mutualistic metabolic interaction between these two gut microbiota members.

The host transcription factor, Bach1, promotes Mycobacterium tuberculosis pathogenesis by inhibiting protective glutathione metabolism and antioxidant responses that prevent ferroptosis.

Opportunistic plant pathogen Xanthomonas secretes leaf-degrading enzymes through the type-2 secretion systems that cause disease and thereby trigger changes in leaf microbiome composition.

A Bacillus subtilis phage uses arbitrium signalling for co-opting host defence mechanisms to fine-tune the lytic–lysogenic switch.

The phage-encoded arbitrium communication system controls the activity of the host bacterial toxin–antitoxin system MazE–MazF to regulate lysis–lysogeny decision.

BilR is identified as a bilirubin reductase encoded by gut bacteria, which reduces bilirubin to urobilinogen.

Using proximity labelling and single-particle tracking super-resolution microscopy, this study illuminates the initial steps of type III secretion and the path of T3SS effectors before their translocation into target cells.

Staphylococcus epidermidis IVK83, a nasal commensal, produces an extremely short-lived, broad-spectrum antimicrobial peptide–polyene called epifadin, which eliminates Staphylococcus aureus in vitro and in vivo.

A diverse arsenal of fibre-like proteins extend outward from the B. bacteriovorus cell surface and localize towards prey cells, facilitating recognition and invasion.

Computational analyses and molecular genetics reveal that integron cassettes integrate into bacterial genomes at widespread non-classical attG sites, enabling acquisition of genetic material and disruption of existing genes with potential consequences for bacterial evolution.

PRO-seq, which does not need antibodies or epitope tags on RNAP, is adapted to report nascent transcription in bacteria including human gut microbiome samples.

High-throughput growth assays show that cyclic-oligonucleotide-based anti-phage signalling systems modulate Vibrio cholerae sensitivity to antifolates, and ultimately trigger cell lysis by these drugs.

SMC proteins are key architects of chromosome organization across all domains of life, yet in their absence, A. pernix relies on transcription, anchored loops and self-interaction domains to maintain genome architecture.

Herd immunity to dengue acts at the household level according to a longitudinal, multigenerational cohort study.

Phylogenetics and convergence-based genome-wide association studies were used to analyse genomic variants across approximately 2,000 isolates from six Candida species to reveal how Candida fungal pathogens adapt to drugs and clinical environments.