Volume 5 Issue 6, 2 June 2020

Earthy-smelling volatiles produced by sporulating Streptomyces attract soil arthropods that eat the bacteria and spread ‘hitch-hiking’ spores.

Protease-enabled strand exchange to mediate assembly of type V pilus is confirmed using a combination of cryogenic electron microscopy and X-ray crystal structures.

Multi-omics reveals how metabolites produced by pioneer bacterial species might alter the neonatal gut environment to an anaerobic state much earlier than was previously thought during the first hours of life.

Urban informal settlements, more commonly known as slums, are hotspots for the environmental transmission of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Here, the authors discuss the behavioural, environmental and structural reasons for this and propose that improvements in water and waste infrastructure, as well as legal and economic incentives, could limit environmental AMR dissemination.

Flaviviruses, a group of vector-borne RNA viruses that includes dengue virus, West Nile virus, Zika virus and several lesser-known species, often emerge in human populations and cause epidemics. Here, Pierson and Diamond review the basic biology of these viruses, their life cycles, the diseases they cause and available therapeutic options. They also discuss the global distribution of flaviviruses, with a focus on lesser-known species that have the potential to emerge more broadly in human populations.

The crystal structure of the RodA–PBP2 complex from Thermus thermophilus elucidates how binding between these two proteins regulates their abilities to polymerize and crosslink peptidoglycan during bacterial cell wall synthesis.

Streptomyces bacteria make volatile compounds such as geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol that attract springtails to bacterial colonies. The soil arthropods feed on the bacteria and help to disseminate spores via faecal pellets and through adherence to their surface.

Structures of the FimA pilin from Porphyromonas gingivalis in monomeric and polymerized states reveal the protease-mediated strand-exchange assembly mechanism of type V pili, which is a key virulence factor of this periodontal pathogen.

Using a multi-omics approach to analyse meconium and stool samples from babies during the first few days of life, the authors show that the gut is detectably colonized within 16 h of birth, with Escherichia coli dominating, and that this correlates with proteome and metabolome changes including the fermentation of amino acids.

An analysis of Plasmodium falciparum FIKK serine/threonine kinases elucidates how phosphorylation regulates parasite infection of host red blood cells.

The authors present the full-length structure of the polymerase (L protein) from the severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV)—a segmented, negative-stranded RNA virus. The structure reveals important details with implications for the understanding of viral transcription and replication, and provides information on the organization of the polymerase core domain, entrance and exit tunnels, as well as the cap-binding and endonuclease domains.