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Short pAgo proteins associate with the Sir2 effector from Geobacter sulfurreducens to induce abortive infection via NAD+ depletion and provide defence against invading DNA.
Efforts to futureproof global microbial biodiversity are proposed, in particular in managed landscapes, to monitor, manage and restore the soil fungal microbiome.
Type IV CRISPR systems that interfere with the transmission of mobile genetic elements are poorly understood. Here the authors show that a Pseudomonas Type IV-A system targets DNA in a PAM-dependent manner without DNA nuclease activity.
Probiotics given to preterm infants not only persist but restructure early-life microbiota, which presents an opportunity to optimize developmental outcomes and a responsibility to fully understand the long-term consequences.
We present a series of commissioned articles authored by people from groups that are under-represented in research, to highlight past and present scientific contributions in microbiology and to increase the diversity of Nature Microbiology authors.
A computational analysis of biosynthetic gene clusters with unique structural features unveils new natural product scaffolds, leading to the discovery of an antibiotic targeting BamA with activity against Gram-negative pathogens.
Ariangela Kozik is a research investigator at the University of Michigan where she studies the role of the respiratory microbiome, and host–microbiome interactions, in asthma pathogenesis and treatment response. Ariangela is also the vice president and a co-founder of the Black Microbiologists Association.
Metagenomics and metabolomics analysis of a longitudinal cohort of 123 very preterm infants reveals multiple drivers of gut microbiome development and indicates that there are strain-specific effects of probiotic products.
Most prokaryotes cannot easily be grown in the laboratory and distributed as pure cultures. Thus, these organisms could not be officially named. A code of nomenclature — the SeqCode — provides paths to name such organisms on the basis of genomic data, aiming to unify field and laboratory studies in microbiology.
Anti-cancer fluoropyrimidine drugs have antibacterial effects on the gut microbiome, and these drugs can be metabolized by gut bacteria via conserved pathways also found in mammalian hosts.
The oral bacterium Veillonella parvula utilizes inflammation-associated nitrate to facilitate colonization of the intestinal tract, which is observed in a mouse model of colitis and patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
Plant-beneficial pseudomonads use a type IVB secretion system to kill bacterial competitors and invade biofilms, playing a major role in root-associated lifestyle.
Here the authors use 71 E. coli strains to generate a fosmid library that is experimentally tested for anti-phage activity and find dozens of new candidate defence systems, many of which are carried on prophage or mobile genetic elements.
Bacterial divisome protein FtsA, which is an actin homologue, forms double filaments following binding to FtsN, and like MreB, an actin homologue in the elongasome, the curvature-sensing double filaments guide peptidoglycan insertion for cell division.
Pseudomonas putida uses a type IVB secretion system to kill a broad range of Gram-negative bacteria, invade biofilms and prevent phytopathogen Ralstonia solanacearum infection in tomato plants.