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Parasite access to the central nervous system is a severe complication of infection. Toxoplasma gondii can achieve this by directly infecting, replicating in and lysing blood–brain barrier endothelial cells.
A systems biology approach to analyse yeast auxotrophs shows that, even when supplemented, they have profoundly altered transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolic profiles.
The apparent emergence of new and devastating Vibrio diseases in Latin America during significant El Niño events is striking. New microbiological, genomic and bioinformatic tools are providing us with evidence that El Niño may represent a long-distance corridor for waterborne diseases into the Americas from Asia.
Concern over Ebola becoming endemic in West Africa has appeared in the medical and lay media. Routes of transmission, rates of viral evolution, suitability of humans as hosts and rarity of spillover events make this very unlikely. Without evidence that endemic Ebola is likely, ending epidemics should remain the focus.
Inhibition of BCL-XL eliminates Legionella infection, suggesting that host-directed BH3-mimetic therapy may be effective against intracellular pathogens that inhibit host cell protein synthesis.
Infection with HIV-1 triggers an increase in N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification of both viral and host mRNAs, which impacts viral replication and nuclear export of viral RNA.
Renal infection with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) leads to both the induction of apoptosis through upregulation of Smad7 and FGF2 and to renal failure.
The HigBA toxin–antitoxin system of Caulobacter crescentus can act as a switch between promoting and inhibiting bacterial growth, depending on the dosage of HigA antitoxin, HigB toxin and its mRNA target.
During public health emergencies, such as the current increase in microcephaly and neurological syndromes potentially associated with the Zika virus outbreak, a rapid and coordinated response necessitates the immediate sharing of data. Nature Microbiology policy is fully aligned with this imperative.
Genomic reconstruction from hot spring sediment metagenomes show that 'Hadesarchaea' have streamlined yet metabolically versatile genomes, with genes involved in CO and H2 oxidation, with potential coupling to nitrite reduction to ammonia.
T. gondii crosses biological barriers using transcellular migration or within an infected migrating cell. Here, infection and lysis of endothelial cells in the brain vasculature is identified as a new route of access to the central nervous system.
Whole genome sequencing of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis isolates from the UK and Ireland reveal a population with three predominant lineages, two of which have acquired and lost resistance multiple times.
A transmembrane protein receptor that is critical for adeno-associated virus infection has been identified through an unbiased, genome-wide screen. Its role in viral entry could potentially be harnessed to develop enhanced gene therapy vectors and better animal models of human disease.
Significant gaps in our characterization of microbial diversity remain; this meta-analysis of amplicon-based rRNA studies shows that they miss approximately 10% of environmental microbial sequences, most belonging to the candidate phyla radiation.
Deletions in amino acid biosynthetic pathways (auxotrophy) are widely used as selection markers, but induce major alterations of the Saccharomyces transcriptome, proteome and metabolome, representing a confounding factor in the use of auxotrophs.
Recombination of genes responsible for synthesis of major surface lipooligosaccharides, and consequent loss of these compounds in a Mycobacterium canettii-like progenitor, increased virulence and drove evolution from an environmental, relatively non-pathogenic status to virulent Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the cause of the present-day TB epidemic.
Widespread antibiotic resistance is a growing public health problem. Can we revive large-scale screening to keep the pipelines flowing or will we depend increasingly on biological and ecological insights?