Reviews & Analysis

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  • Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infects pluripotent haematopoietic progenitor cells, yet it is latent in monocyte/myeloid-lineage cells. A new study reveals that HCMV achieves this by actively reprogramming the infected progenitor cell into a unique monocyte subset, enabling the successful lifelong persistence of HCMV in its host.

    • Matthew B. Reeves
    News & Views
  • CRISPR immunity begins with the acquisition of sequences from invading nucleic acids through spacer integration into a CRISPR locus. Off-target integration of spacers into other parts of the genome is now implicated as a spontaneous source of new CRISPR loci.

    • Alireza Edraki
    • Erik J. Sontheimer
    News & Views
  • Effective treatment and eradication of tuberculosis requires highly sensitive and specific, easy-to-use detection methods. New advances in molecular tools and technology are driving improved tuberculosis diagnostics, including ways to rapidly identify highly drug-resistant infections.

    • Eric J. Rubin
    News & Views
  • An alternative nitrogenase enzyme that only utilizes iron as its cofactor is shown to reduce carbon dioxide while actively fixing dinitrogen, so that it simultaneously produces ammonium, hydrogen and methane.

    • Oliver Einsle
    News & Views
  • Geographic mapping of pathogen emergence risk, as recently done for viral haemorrhagic fever in Africa, provides an important tool for targeting interventions. More comprehensive preparedness and prediction systems that increase surveillance and forecast infectious disease outbreak growth and spread in real time are also needed.

    • Jeffrey Shaman
    News & Views
  • Detailed biochemical, structural and growth studies reveal how Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron coordinates a complex enzymatic response to deconstruct pectins — complex dietary components that comprise a tremendous diversity of monosaccharide units and glycosidic linkage combinations.

    • Roderick I. Mackie
    • Isaac Cann
    News & Views
  • APOBEC3G is an antiviral protein that has long been known to inhibit retrovirus replication by hypermutating viral DNA. An additional mechanism is now identified, in which APOBEC3G binds to the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, inhibiting viral DNA synthesis.

    • Paul D. Bieniasz
    News & Views
  • In recent years, there has been a growing appreciation of the role metabolism plays in controlling nearly all aspects of cellular function. Three recent articles explore how host metabolic cues influence different aspects of Plasmodium biology during infection, including parasite growth and sexual differentiation.

    • Kim C. Williamson
    • Rodney L. Levine
    • Louis H. Miller
    News & Views
  • Functional and structural studies highlight the remarkable evolution and features of the typhoid toxin from Salmonella Typhi. This reveals that attachment of the toxin to specific N-glycan chains accounts for its tropism for selected human tissues.

    • Sandrine Bourdoulous
    • Emmanuel Lemichez
    News & Views
  • The colonization resistance paradigm is explored, with a focus on the benefits and limitations of current murine models used to assess the role of the microbiota in enteric infection.

    • Caroline Mullineaux-Sanders
    • Jotham Suez
    • Gad Frankel
    Perspective
  • Bacterial biofilms fabricate an extracellular amyloid fibre network that intimately links cells together and inhibits the ability of bacteriophages to penetrate the biofilm.

    • Janet E. Price
    • Matthew R. Chapman
    News & Views
  • The development of tools to accelerate identification of causal microorganisms is crucial, and advances in microbial culture, bioinformatics and animal experimentation are currently driving these discoveries.

    • Thaddeus S. Stappenbeck
    News & Views
  • The mechanisms involved in controlling Candida albicans at mucosal sites are not fully understood. Recent work identifies the EphA2 on epithelial cells as a fungal β-glucan receptor that is critical for mediating protective immunity during oral candidiasis.

    • Ivy M. Dambuza
    • Gordon D. Brown
    News & Views
  • The incorporation of additional gene circuits into hosts can often lead to unpredicted and undesirable behaviours. Recent work has developed a modelling framework that accounts for host–circuit interactions and can predict a variety of phenotypes at both single-cell and population levels.

    • Sandra J. Aedo
    • Grant Gelderman
    • Mark P. Brynildsen
    News & Views
  • The use of levulinic acid in bioconversion strategies has been limited by the lack of information on the pathways used by microorganisms to degrade it. Now, functional genomics reveals the essential steps for utilization of levulinic acid in Pseudomonas putida.

    • Kristina Haslinger
    • Kristala L. J. Prather
    News & Views
  • Recent work finds that reactive oxygen species are generated in cells starved for the nucleobase thymine and contribute to DNA-destructive “thymineless death” mechanisms, which underlie the activities of many drugs, including trimethoprim and sulfa-based antibiotics. Such mechanisms may also apply to cells across the tree of life.

    • Philip J. Hastings
    • Susan M. Rosenberg
    News & Views
  • 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.

    • Kellie Ann Jurado
    • Akiko Iwasaki
    News & Views