Reviews & Analysis

Improving HIV interventions for men could reduce HIV acquisition in women, close the growing gender gap in HIV infections and further reduce HIV incidence in African countries.

The placenta nourishes the foetus and supports its development and growth. Our study now identifies the placenta as a potential route for foetal infection with Streptococcus agalactiae (group B Streptococcus), as indicated by an exaggerated in utero inflammatory response and poor perinatal outcome when group B Streptococcus is detected in the placenta.

Here the authors review how microbial metabolism could offer greener options for the synthesis and breakdown of plastic monomers and polymers.

This Perspective discusses the prevalence of synergistic metabolic interactions in nature and their impact on microbial communities.

Counting the number of viable cells in a culture remains a critical measurement in microbiology, but traditional dilution assays are time- and reagent-consuming. We developed the geometric viability assay that overcomes these limitations by leveraging microbial colony distribution in a cone — a pipette tip — to calculate viability across six orders of magnitude.

Evidence for immune imprinting in humoral responses to SARS-CoV-2 is reviewed, together with implications for COVID-19 booster vaccine programmes.

Empowering women through citizen science, from using self-collected vaginal samples to participant input on research questions, we decoded nuances in the composition of the vaginal microbiota — thereby linking female health and lifestyle to vaginal microbiota diversity. We crafted a unique dataset that should inspire new diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities.

Human skin organoids are susceptible to mpox virus infection and support infectious virus production. Treatment of infected skin organoids with the antiviral drug tecovirimat can inhibit infectious virus production and prevent host transcriptome rewiring. Thus, skin-organoid-based models are robust for studying mpox virus infection and testing therapeutics.

Marine diatoms can switch from chlorophyll-based photosynthesis to rhodopsin-based phototrophy under iron-limitation conditions.

Computational, molecular and structural analyses reveal the presence of bacterial histones that bind DNA to form dense, DNA-enveloping fibres in Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus.

Lactulose is used to treat patients with hepatic encephalopathy but this prebiotic can also increase intestinal Bifidobacteria, thereby reducing systemic infection, growth of multidrug-resistant bacteria and mortality that often accompanies chronic liver disease.

Evolution of Omicron lineages and future evolutionary trajectories of SARS-CoV-2 are discussed.

We used functional genomics to understand how hospital biocides impact the human pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii. Low concentrations of various biocides dissipated the membrane potential of A. baumannii, which we demonstrated could antagonize the potency of antibiotics.

Millions of people have died from SARS-CoV-2. This Review summarizes how autopsies have contributed to our understanding of disease pathology, discusses the advantages and limitations of autopsies, and outlines how they complement animal infection experiments and clinical studies.

An outline of best practices, resources and suggested improvements to ensure that the complexities inherent to microbial big data do not hamper accessibility.

Genomic epidemiology of the Yemen cholera outbreak reveals the genetic basis for emergence of multidrug resistance with implications for Vibrio cholerae surveillance and control.

This Perspective argues that microbiome ownership needs to be considered in microbiome research involving Indigenous peoples.

A framework centred on relationality among Indigenous peoples, researchers and microorganisms is presented, to guide ethical microbiome research.

Recovery and characterization of the wild-type pangolin coronavirus GD strain helps determine whether these viruses present risks for human transmission and an emerging threat to public health.

Detection of poliovirus by cell culture and subsequent serotype identification via Sanger sequencing can be slow, delaying responses to emerging outbreaks. Direct virus detection using nested reverse transcription PCR and nanopore sequencing was prospectively validated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and yielded accurate results in a fraction of the time.