Volume 6 Issue 11, November 2021

Single-cell sequencing of nasal swab samples from people uninfected or infected with SARS-CoV-2 shows that children have a primed innate immune response, which may protect them from severe disease.

Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria are increasingly prevalent and difficult to treat. A new study identifies the unique vulnerabilities of a class of antibiotic-resistant mutants at the genomic scale, giving new insights into drugs that can be used in combination with antibiotics to suppress resistance.

Roles for dimethylsulfoniopropionate-based infochemical signalling in ocean microbiome ecosystems are reported in a pair of Nature Microbiology papers.

Cell entry mechanisms of the non-enveloped viruses bluetongue and rhesus rotavirus are delineated using structural and molecular biology.

A promising vaccine fails to provide durable protection against infection and clinical malaria in infants, a key malaria vaccine target population, in a phase 2b clinical trial. The need for a highly effective vaccine against malaria remains as urgent as ever.

Extracellular electron transport in Geobacter has long been ascribed to conductive pili. Cryogenic electron microscopy now reveals non-conductive filaments made of pilin-heterodimer subunits. The combined data support a role for Geobacter pili in cytochrome-nanowire secretion instead of conduction.

A complex network of fungal transcription factors regulates plant invasion by Magnaporthe oryzae.

The marine bacterium Puniceibacterium antarcticum SM1211 can produce acrylate from dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) cleavage by the DMSP lyase, DddL, which protects against grazing by a ciliate predator.

Algal production of dimethyl sulfide plays a role in attracting predators and enhancing predation by zooplankton, thus mediating predator–prey relationships in the ocean.

Bifidobacterium species associated with breastfeeding can convert aromatic amino acids into their respective aromatic lactic acids via a previously uncharacterized aromatic lactate dehydrogenase, which may impact immune function in infants.

Comparative RNA-seq, ChIP–seq and quantitative phosphoproteomics reveal how the blast fungus uses the Pmk1 MAP kinase to regulate a network of transcription factors that orchestrate the complex transcriptome changes necessary for infecting rice plants.

Viral encephalitis caused in mice by La Crosse arbovirus can be treated with rottlerin, which prevents viral trafficking from the Golgi and reduces virus titres and neuronal cell death in the central nervous system.

A genome-wide Tn-seq analysis of the rpoB H526Y mutant, a rifampicin-resistant Escherichia coli strain, identifies non-essential genes that modulate the fitness cost of mutations in the bacterial RNA polymerase that confer antibiotic resistance.

Cryo-electron microscopy and cryo-electron tomography reveal conformational changes of the bluetongue virus capsid protein VP5 that lead to membrane perforation and virus release into the cytosol.

The authors assess the durability and long-term cross-reactivity of neutralizing antibodies raised in response to infections with SARS-CoV-2 or variants of concern in humans.

Analysis of the archaeal gut microbiota of 110 vertebrate species spanning five taxonomic classes revealed that host phylogeny could explain archaeal diversity.

Ancestral avian influenza A viruses are used to identify adaptive changes in viral polymerase and nucleoproteins that enable efficient replication and transmission in pigs.