Volume 7 Issue 10, October 2022

Ariangela Kozik is a research investigator at the University of Michigan where she studies the role of the respiratory microbiome, and host–microbiome interactions, in asthma pathogenesis and treatment response. Ariangela is also the vice president and a co-founder of the Black Microbiologists Association.

Probiotics given to preterm infants not only persist but restructure early-life microbiota, which presents an opportunity to optimize developmental outcomes and a responsibility to fully understand the long-term consequences.

Plant-beneficial pseudomonads use a type IVB secretion system to kill bacterial competitors and invade biofilms, playing a major role in root-associated lifestyle.

Genomics analyses of the Streptococcus pneumoniae pangenome show that gene essentiality depends on genetic context and can evolve over time.

A computational analysis of biosynthetic gene clusters with unique structural features unveils new natural product scaffolds, leading to the discovery of an antibiotic targeting BamA with activity against Gram-negative pathogens.

Most prokaryotes cannot easily be grown in the laboratory and distributed as pure cultures. Thus, these organisms could not be officially named. A code of nomenclature — the SeqCode — provides paths to name such organisms on the basis of genomic data, aiming to unify field and laboratory studies in microbiology.

Longitudinal shotgun metagenomics reveal changes in the gut microbial ecology upon carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae colonization and decolonization of adult subjects.

Metagenomics and metabolomics analysis of a longitudinal cohort of 123 very preterm infants reveals multiple drivers of gut microbiome development and indicates that there are strain-specific effects of probiotic products.

A newly discovered benzoxaborole prodrug AN15368 cures Trypanosoma cruzi infection (the cause of Chagas disease) in mice and in naturally infected non-human primates.

Pseudomonas putida uses a type IVB secretion system to kill a broad range of Gram-negative bacteria, invade biofilms and prevent phytopathogen Ralstonia solanacearum infection in tomato plants.

Rational design of live-attenuated RNA viruses with potential as vaccines is enabled by identification of sequence rules for zinc finger antiviral protein.

Here the authors use 71 E. coli strains to generate a fosmid library that is experimentally tested for anti-phage activity and find dozens of new candidate defence systems, many of which are carried on prophage or mobile genetic elements.

Pan-genome analyses of clinical pneumococcal strains identify categories of essential genes and show that gene essentiality depends on strain genetic background.

Longitudinal sampling, modelling and genomic analyses of stool samples from Malawian adults reveal how antimicrobial exposure and hospitalization promote ESBL-Enterobacterales colonization.

Anti-cancer fluoropyrimidine drugs have antibacterial effects on the gut microbiome, and these drugs can be metabolized by gut bacteria via conserved pathways also found in mammalian hosts.

In situ cryo-ET imaging and live-cell fluorescence microscopy reveal that septal peptidoglycan architecture and divisome activity modulate bacterial morphogenesis in Escherichia coli.

Amino acid changes in a newly identified spike epitope enabled the Delta variant to evade a population antibody response.

Tropical forests store vast amounts of carbon that might be liberated as temperatures increase. A 2-year experiment of tropical forest soil warming reveals that microbial diversity is reduced, but enzyme activity is increased, resulting in CO₂ emissions threefold greater than modelling predicts.

Computational search identifies dynobactin A which is a systemically active, natural-product peptide antibiotic that kills Gram-negative bacteria.

The oral bacterium Veillonella parvula utilizes inflammation-associated nitrate to facilitate colonization of the intestinal tract, which is observed in a mouse model of colitis and patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

Bacterial divisome protein FtsA, which is an actin homologue, forms double filaments following binding to FtsN, and like MreB, an actin homologue in the elongasome, the curvature-sensing double filaments guide peptidoglycan insertion for cell division.

SeqCode is the result of a community effort to unify nomenclature for uncultured and cultured prokaryotes using genome sequences.