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“Everything is everywhere, but, the environment selects” — a hypothesis formulated by Lourens Baas Becking in 1934 — is used to frame research that analyses the sharing of Escherichia coli strains across humans, livestock and wildlife animals.
Large-scale gut microbiome analysis of a widely use mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease reveals that the gut microbiome is a driver of variability across genetically identical mice, in particular two species that are associated with variable treatment endpoints.
The SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant has been prevalent in Latin America. An analysis of the neutralization capacity of antibodies elicited by CoronaVac and BNT162b2 against SARS-CoV-2 Lambda in plasma from healthcare workers and patients in Chile reveals that BNT162b2 elicits higher neutralizing antibody titres than CoronaVac.
Following bacterial infection, macrophages undergo metabolic changes that activate antibacterial responses. However, pathogens can exploit host immunometabolites as a signal for virulence induction. This Review examines the crosstalk between pathogens and macrophage immunometabolism.
High-resolution sampling across thousands of kilometres of open ocean reveals a hotspot of viruses at the boundary of major oceanic gyres that, at times, shaped the abundance and biogeography of marine picocyanobacteria.
Sources of microbial metabolites in the surface ocean, their roles in ecology and biogeochemistry, and methods that can be used to analyse them are reviewed.
The human gut microbiota can metabolize xanthan gum, a food additive that was introduced to our diets relatively recently in processed foods. A Ruminococcaceae species can degrade this complex polysaccharide and, in some individuals, Bacteroides intestinalis can grow on the released oligosaccharide products.
To promote expression of the most recently acquired CRISPR spacers, the transcribed leader region upstream of CRISPR arrays interacts with the conserved repeats bordering the newest spacer, with the resulting interaction promoting tracrRNA hybridization with the second repeat and accelerating crRNA processing
Using microbiome data analysis and a self-establishing metabolically cooperating yeast community model, the authors show that the presence of auxotrophs in a microbial community increases metabolic interactions between cells and fosters antimicrobial drug tolerance.
Phylogeography and phylogenomic analyses of E. coli isolates collected from humans and domesticated and wild animals across 99 households in Nairobi reveal strong intra-household, and lower but detectable inter-household and inter-host, strain-sharing patterns.
Focused research efforts provide important advances in science, but huge global problems will only be solved through interdisciplinary collaborations, argues David Ng.
Here the implications of gender inequity in the face of infectious disease outbreaks such as Ebola and SARS-CoV-2 in Africa are discussed, with a proposal as to how we can address the unequal burden of outbreaks on women.
Contractile injection systems are nanomachines used by bacteria to puncture target cell membranes, thereby mediating bacterial competition and infection of eukaryotic cells. Two studies shed light on the structural diversity of these molecular spearguns using advanced multiscale imaging techniques.
Elizabeth Anne Bukusi is a research professor in obstetrics and gynaecology and global health at the University of Washington and a senior principal clinical research scientist at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). Her research focuses on sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health and HIV prevention, care and treatment.
Despite evidence of sex-specific pathogenesis, few studies of infectious diseases report or analyse sex or gender, unless it is the primary focus. Using HIV as an example, it is argued here that this leaves potentially informative data unexplored and that integrating sex and gender in analyses may accelerate research in microbial pathogenesis.
