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Zika virus infection of astrocytes in Ifnar–/– mice results in breakdown of the blood–brain barrier and CD8+ effector T-cell infiltration, which limits neuron infection but leads to Zika-virus-associated paralysis.
APOBEC3G is shown to induce a potent, non-site-specific interference with reverse transcription through direct interaction with HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, and host DNA repair machinery is shown to cleave HIV-1 cDNA.
A machine-learning approach accounting for methodological differences in studies and complex interactions among taxa allows independent soil studies to be combined at the taxonomy-based level to assess bacterial community structure.
How the oral epithelium discriminates pathogens from commensals is unclear. Ephrin A2 is now shown to bind exposed β-glucans on the surface of the fungal pathogen Candida albicans, which is required to mount a proinflammatory and antifungal response.
Metagenome and genome database analysis based on proteinfamily profiles identifies a diverse group of bacteriophage related to the abundant human gut crAssphage and predicts replication and transcription gene function.
As certain phages can infect some Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains by binding to their pilins, the bacteria have evolved ways to modify these structures via the addition of O-antigen units or polymers of d-arabinofuranose to block phage attachment.
Cultivation of a cellulolytic consortium reveals successional community dynamics and the presence of multidomain glycoside hydrolases assembled into stable complexes distinct from cellulosomes, which are produced by a potential pioneer population.
This study reports the viral and cellular N6-methyladenosine (m6A) and N6,2′-O-dimethyladenosine (m6Am) epitranscriptomes during KSHV latent and lytic infection, and shows that lytic replication induces dynamic epitranscriptome reprogramming of host pathways that control this process.
The cell tropism of noroviruses in vivo remains unclear. Here, the dominant cellular targets during acute norovirus infection of immunocompetent mice are shown to be macrophages, dendritic cells, B cells and T cells in the GALT gut-associated lymphoid tissue.
To evade autophagy-mediated killing when inside liver cells, the Plasmodium berghei protein UIS3 binds to a key regulator of the autophagy programme, the host protein LC3, and inhibits its interaction with downstream effectors.
Adaptation of the polony method allows numerical abundances of diverse viral groups to be quantified in environmental samples, and reveals that clade B T7-like cyanophages that carry the <Emphasis Type=”Italic”>psbA</Emphasis> gene are more abundant in the Red Sea than clade A phages.
At late stages of biofilm development, Escherichia coli cells express the curli polymer CsgA. CsgA assembles into a fibre network that protects biofilms from attack by lytic phages.
Two studies identify circulating monocytes as the primary cellular target of Zika virus infection in human blood. Monocytes are an ideal target as they have the potential to be used as a Trojan horse to infiltrate immune-sheltered tissues, including placenta, testes and the brain, to spread Zika virus.
The Uncultivated Bacteria and Archaea dataset is a foundational collection of 7,903 genomes from uncultivated microorganisms. It highlights how microbial diversity is readily recovered using current tools and existing metagenomic datasets to help piece together the tree of life.
An increased focus on identifying disease hotspots and pre-emptive intervention will be key to halting outbreaks before they become established, but political and economic obstacles cannot be ignored if ambitious new targets to reduce global cholera mortality tenfold are to be achieved.
Using transcriptome data from marine subsurface sediments, expressed microbial enzymes are shown to be potential targets for secretion by Bacteria, Archaea and Fungi, providing insights into nutrient cycling in the subsurface environment.
A CRISPR–Cas9-based gene drive array platform is developed and combined with mating-competent Candida albicans haploids to generate homozygous double-deletion mutants, transforming our ability to do genetic interaction analyses in fungi.