Volume 19 Issue 9, September 2021

This article shows that a plant fungus manipulates caterpillars to ensure its spread.

In marine sponges, higher microbiome diversity and maintenance of host innate immunity was associated with resilience to warming and acidification.

This study shows that phage predation of Klebsiella pneumoniae is regulated by capsule type and that capsule loss promotes plasmid conjugation.

Oomycetes use a slicing mechanism depending on polarized hyphae to invade plant hosts.

This study reports that bacteriocins are encoded in temperate phages, and that they can be transferred between bacterial hosts, which provides a competitive advantage.

Two recent studies provide evidence that liquid–liquid phase separation during viral replication is a target for antiviral therapy.

A recent study uncovers that sensing of host amino acids in Aeromonas veronii regulates bacterial motility, enhancing gut colonization of zebrafish.

This month’s Genome Watch highlights current research into the genomic and functional diversity of type VI secretion systems in Vibrio cholerae.

In this Review, Mizrahi and colleagues describe the composition, ecology and metabolism of the rumen microbiome, and the impact on host physiology and the environment. They also discuss the most pertinent methane mitigation strategies that emerged to balance food security and environmental impact.

Type VII secretion systems have a key role in the secretion of effector proteins in non-pathogenic mycobacteria and pathogenic mycobacteria such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In this Review, Rivera-Calzada et al. provide an overview of the architecture of type VII secretion systems, their functions and transport models.

Prevotella is a genus of bacteria that commonly associate with humans, in various body sites. In this Review, Segata, Ercolini and colleagues discuss Prevotella diversity and the evidence for the involvement of these bacteria in human health and disease.

In this Review, Stanley-Wall and colleagues provide an overview of biofilm composition and formation in Bacillus subtilis and how this research is informing microbial evolution and ecology and aiding in the development of beneficial applications for biofilms.