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The increasing levels of antibiotic resistance observed in clinical isolates, coupled with a lack of new drugs coming through the development pipeline, make the problem of antibiotic resistance a global crisis. In this Essay, Davies and colleagues draw up a priority list of urgent steps and future research directions that are needed to tackle this growing problem.
In filamentous fungi, actin is organized in higher-order structures (patches, rings and cables) that generate forces or serve as tracks for the intracellular transport of vesicles and organelles. Here, Read and colleagues discuss the contribution that recent live-cell imaging and mutational studies have made to our understanding of these processes.
Bacteria need to find the middle of the cell and prevent the formation of a division septum that bisects the chromosome. The nucleoid occlusion system, mediated by Noc inBacillus subtilis and SlmA in Escherichia coli, connects septum formation with chromosome segregation to optimize cell division.
Cellular pathways can be controlled through proteolysis, which allows rapid responses to changes in the environment. However, proteolysis is irreversible, so it must be carefully regulated. Here, Ron and colleagues describe how proteolysis modifies cellular behaviour and the ways in which it is controlled.
Viruses rely on the translation machinery of the host cell to produce the proteins that are essential for their replication. Here, Walsh and Mohr discuss the diverse strategies by which viruses subvert the host protein synthesis machinery and regulate the translation of viral mRNAs.
Our monthly round-up of infectious diseases news, which this month includes the Lasker Award for the discovery of artemisinin, the discovery of a new tick-borne disease and the development of a new tuberculosis vaccine.
The compatible solute dimethylsulphoniopropionate (DMSP) has important roles in the ecology and biogeochemistry of marine environments, as do some of its breakdown products. In this Review, Johnston and colleagues describe the recent advances in our understanding of the microorganisms, enzymes and genes involved in DMSP catabolism.
Non-transcriptional events can have a large effect on the dynamics of regulatory processes. Here, Ray, Tabor and Igoshin describe how post-transcriptional and post-translational events can affect the performance of regulatory processes in bacteria.
