News & Views

Attaching and effacing enteropathogenic Escherichia coli causes gastrointestinal inflammation and diarrhoea. In this issue of Nature Microbiology, Pearson and colleagues find that this pathology involves bacterial cleavage of a class of host cell death signal adaptors that encode a unique protein interaction motif called the RHIM.

Rodent malaria parasites establish chronic infections through the sequential expression of subsets of variant antigen-encoding genes, a process that surprisingly appears to be independent of adaptive immunity.

The sensor cyclic GMP–AMP synthase (cGAS) is well known to recognize viral DNA. In this issue of Nature Microbiology, infection by dengue virus (DENV), which has an RNA genome, is shown to induce mitochondrial DNA release into the cytosol, leading to cGAS activation. In turn, DENV targets cGAS to evade antiviral immunity.

A newly identified phosphoinositide kinase helps to generate phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PtdIns4P) on the vacuolar membrane of the intracellular pathogen Legionella pneumophila. Sequential effector protein cooperation explains the unusual enrichment of PtdIns4P on the Legionella-containing vacuole.

Recent work characterizing CozE, a protein that controls the function of the class A penicillin-binding protein PBP1a, sheds new light on our understanding of the synthesis of the bacterial peptidoglycan shell.

Rhythmic colonization of gut bacteria on mucosal surfaces is promoted by time-dependent feeding, and is now shown to drive circadian expression of host genes that are involved in functions such as drug detoxification in the liver.

Growth of Candida albicans on different host carbon sources reveals that the cell wall is a live organelle that can respond to alterations in the environment by masking a cell surface epitope to protect the fungal cell from the host immune response.

The biologically active form of vitamin B₁ is not required by Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, challenging the paradigm that this vitamin is essential for all living organisms.

Type VII protein secretion systems are most widely associated with virulence in bacterial pathogens. A new study reveals a type VII system-secreted nuclease toxin that specifically affects clonally unrelated strains, thus placing type VII secretion directly into the fray of microbial competition.

Bacterial infection of the bladder can lead to mucosal remodelling and increased predisposition to recurrent infection, changing the way we view host susceptibility and providing new opportunities to develop novel therapeutics.

An effector protein secreted by the intracellular human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis impairs antigen processing in targeted phagocytic cells, resulting in evasion from immune surveillance by a dedicated adaptive immune response.

Microorganisms produce antibiotics, which can exclude competitors, but bacteria typically only synthesize modest amounts of these compounds. New work suggests this may be an evolutionary strategy to balance the benefits of antimicrobial warfare against inadvertently providing help to resistant free-loaders.

Plasmids are well known for spreading antibiotic-resistance genes between bacterial strains. Recent experiments show that they can also act as catalysts for evolutionary innovation, promoting rapid evolution of novel antibiotic resistance.

Sequence variability in microbial surface proteins can be extensive in order to promote immune escape, but the changes must not interfere with the function of the protein. Structural analysis of a streptococcal protein now clarifies how an extremely variable region retains its ability to specifically bind its human target.

Viruses, once thought of only as purveyors of disease, take centre stage, from the human microbiome to the oceans, as archives of global diversity and drivers of biogeochemical cycles.

The number of ribosomal operons in bacterial genomes correlates with both growth rate and carbon use efficiency, likely via proteome allocation trade-offs, providing clues into how microbial communities are structured to make best use of available nutrients.

Structural determination of the secreted haem-binding protein from Candida albicans reveals a novel fold and haem coordination environment that facilitates the shuttling of the haem cofactor across the cell wall to the cell surface.

Technological breakthroughs in cryo-electron microscopy are allowing the capture of virus structures, leading to advances in the field of viral microbiology almost daily. An innovative structure–function study on Aichi virus reveals that novel entry mechanisms, yet undiscovered, may exist for non-enveloped viruses.

The spirochaete flagella, unlike those of other bacteria, are located entirely within the periplasm of the bacteria. New work highlights another unique spirochaete characteristic — an unusual covalent linkage that mediates flagellar hook self-polymerization and is required for motility.

Regulation of transcriptional termination in archaea has remained a mystery. Now, a high-throughput RNA sequencing approach identifies multiple archaeal genes that contain consecutive terminators, suggesting new ways by which these microorganisms regulate transcription.