Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Persister formation byS. Typhimurium involves the acetylation of aminoacyl-tRNAs by the toxin–antitoxin module toxin TacT, which can be reversed by an antitoxin-independent mechanism that enables S. Typhimurium to resume growth.
This study shows that the bacterial metabolite butyrate potently suppresses the proliferation of stem cells and that the intestinal crypt architecture protects stem cells and progenitor cells through a metabolic barrier that is formed by colonocytes that metabolize butyrate.
Bacteriophage ϕ29 has a uses the gp9 protein at the end of its tail tip to form a pore in the bacterial cell membrane, through which the viral DNA can enter the host cell.
Virions acquire receptor-binding competence by a slow maturation process that involves the translocation of a receptor-binding domain across the membranous viral envelope to avoid non-productive attachment to non-hepatocytes.
In this Review, te Velthuis and Fodor detail the recently obtained high-resolution structures of the influenza virus RNA polymerase and the insights that have been gained into the mechanisms of viral transcription and replication. They also discuss how these structural data could help to identify novel antiviral targets.
Plasmodiumparasites alter the physiology and morphology of erythrocytes by exporting hundreds of proteins into the host cell. In this Review, de Koning-Wardet al. discuss how these parasites use distinct protein trafficking motifs, protease-mediated polypeptide processing, a novel translocon and membranous structures to induce host cell remodelling and promote their own survival.
Metagenome-wide association studies (MWAS) are designed to detect associations between the human microbiome and disease. In this Review, Jia and Wang describe the principal findings of MWAS of human diseases, and consider how these findings might be integrated into medical research and practice.
Insights into coronavirus emergence, replication and pathogenesis gained from the SARS and MERS outbreaks have guided the development of preventive and therapeutic measures. In this Review, Munster and colleagues highlight recent achievements and areas that need to be addressed to combat novel coronaviruses.
The evolution of monoderm and diderm cell envelopes, and thus of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, is a long-standing question. In this Opinion article, Tocheva, Ortega and Jensen propose, based on recent electron cryotomography data, a new model that places sporulation at the heart of bacterial evolution.
