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This study describes the dynamic mechanisms driving utilization of pectins by Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, where specific polysaccharide-utilization loci target specific pectin molecules with the products available for use by other bacteria.
The four PASTA domains of StkP, a critical regulator of cell division in Streptococcus pneumoniae, play distinct roles in controlling septal cell wall thickness and cell separation.
Inoculation of pregnant dams with an antibiotic-perturbed microbiota resulted in vertical transmission to the offspring in the absence of antibiotics and increased colitis in IL10–/– mice, indicating that antibiotic treatment has long-term effects.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bacillus subtilis cells are able to sense self-produced autoinducers, which gives rise to stronger quorum-sensing-mediated responses, in a process that can influence the generation of persisters during antibiotic treatment.
Comparative genomics and high-resolution mass spectrometry reveal the biosynthetic gene clusters, and vast chemical diversity of natural products that they encode, in Photorhabdus and Xenorhabdus, bacteria that interact with hosts as symbionts and entomopathogens.
Under nutritional limitation, modification of the Lactobacillus plantarum cell wall by d-alanylation of teichoic acids is important for host intestinal peptidase expression and consequently growth of the Drosophila host, providing further insights into host–commensal interactions.
An atomic model for a type 2 secretion system pseudopilus from Klebsiella oxytoca reveals a comprehensive network of inter-subunit contacts while mutational and functional analyses highlight the role of calcium in PulG folding and stability.
Levulinic acid (LA) is a value-added chemical easily obtained from biomass. The pathway enabling LA degradation in Pseudomonas putida requires five enzymes and can be engineered into Escherichia coli, which could enable further biotechnological applications.