In Brief in 2019

This study shows that antibiotic persistence in Salmonella enterica can arise through slow growth alone without the need of previously suggested mechanisms.

The Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study reports the results of a case–control study to characterize the causes of pneumonia in children without HIV infection from Africa and Asia.

This study reports that transduction of antibiotic resistance genes and lysogeny contribute to the survival of transducing phages and their hosts.

This study identifies the first effector of contractile injection systems with nuclease activity that targets eukaryotic organisms.

The results of this study suggest that the Mla pathway may be involved in anterograde phospholipid transport to the bacterial outer membrane.

This study explores the frequency of cross-contamination between samples in DNA sequence-based microbiome studies.

This study reports that lipid droplets provide a reservoir for a lipophilic tuberculosis drug and enhance drug efficacy.

A recent study reports an enzymatic pathway in the human gut microbiome that converts A type blood into the universal donor type, which could lead to an increase in the supply of universal donor blood.

This study reports a photocontrollable system for the spatiotemporal regulation of mononegavirus gene expression and replication.

This study found that a Pseudomonas phage-encoded tubulin-like protein forms treadmilling filaments in infected hosts to transport viral capsids to sites of DNA packaging.

This study found that coagulase-negative staphylococci found on human skin inhibit Staphylococcus aureus quorum sensing and may influence the pathophysiology of S. aureus-associated atopic dermatitis.

This study reports the use of a three-phage cocktail in the treatment of disseminated drug-resistant Mycobacterium abscessus.

An observational study of 782 gay couples across Europe reports that men whose HIV-1 infection was fully suppressed by antiretroviral therapy had zero chance of infecting their partner.

This study reports a mutualistic symbiosis between excavate protists and ectosymbiotic Deltaproteobacteria in anoxic marine sediments, revealing a unique example of eukaryotic magnetoreception acquired by symbiosis.

This study shows that the presence of filamentous bacteriophages affects the pathogenicity of Pseudomonas infections in patients with cystic fibrosis.

This study reports the findings of a large global survey of the ecological diversity of viruses in the oceans and shows that the Arctic ocean is an unexpected hotspot for viral diversity.

This report shows that glycolysis is important for modulating replication of murine norovirus.

This study shows that TRIM5α contributes to the control of HIV-1 in infected humans.

This study reports that the intracellular c-di-GMP levels are reduced in Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium during infection of macrophages to promote survival.

This study reports a novel strategy to reduce the ability of tsetse flies to transmit trypanosomes.