Volume 6 Issue 9, September 2021

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum survives fever during human infection by using a transcription factor to regulate its heat-shock response.

To grow and divide properly, bacteria need to coordinate DNA replication with cell division. A recent study identifies CcrZ as a protein from Streptococcus pneumoniae that links these two processes by interacting with FtsZ, the orchestrator of cell division, and modulating the activity of DnaA, the initiator of DNA replication.

This Perspective discusses current knowledge of the complex crosstalk between the microbiota and γδ T cells and future outlooks.

This Review summarizes sixteen known co-produced bacterial metabolites, their biosynthesis strategies and their synergistic antimicrobial activity mechanisms.

The oxidoreductase (NXR) multiprotein complex is a key enzyme in the nitrogen cycle. A detailed structural and biochemical characterization of NXR from the anammox bacterium Kuenenia stuttgartiensis shows that this complex is a filament-forming protein that catalysers both nitrite oxidation and nitrate reduction, and elucidates the mechanisms governing complex assembly and function.

Longitudinal tracing of antibody responses to the ChAdOx1 and the BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccines in 45,965 adults from the United Kingdom give indications for vaccine prioritization.

Host preferences of commensal bacteria in the root microbiota are revealed using systematic analyses of synthetic bacterial communities in a gnotobiotic system.

Malaria parasites are protected from febrile temperatures in humans by a heat-shock response that is coordinated by the transcriptional activator PfAP2-HS.

In this Article, the authors identify CcrZ as a protein that coordinates DNA replication and cell division in Streptococcus pneumoniae and other Firmicutes. CcrZ is localized to the division site by binding directly to the divisome protein FtsZ, and there it activates DnaA, the master initiator of DNA replication, through a still unknown mechanism.

Evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein receptor-binding domain in vitro recapitulates SARS-CoV-2 variant emergence and produces an effective antiviral spike receptor-binding domain variant.

Transposon directed insertion–site sequencing (TraDIS) is used to identify T6SS toxins in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, leading to the discovery of Tse8 as a protein that is delivered to target cells where it alters the stoichiometry of the transamidosome complex and thereby inhibits protein synthesis.