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The scale of life in the microbial world is such that amazing numbers become commonplace. These numbers can be sources of inspiration for those in the field and used to inspire awe in the next generation of microbiologists.
Two articles decribe fungal effectors that change the transcriptional response of the host plant to promote the establishment of a symbiotic relationship.
A 7,000-year record of the population dynamics of a single-celled alga and its viruses has been reconstructed from ancient DNA extracted from marine sediments.
This month's Genome Watch discusses the methods and implications of recent rapid sequence analyses of outbreak strains ofEscherichia coli and Vibrio cholerae.
Our monthly round up of infectious diseases news, which this month includes the use of Twitter to track public health, a call to ban tuberculosis blood tests, genetically modified organisms to fight HIV, and the outbreak ofEscherichia coliin Germany.
Bacterial pathogens secrete a range of effector proteins to target the signalling pathways that regulate host cell membranes. Here, Orth and colleagues describe the bacterial effectors that target phosphoinositide signalling, GTPase signalling and autophagy, and discuss how targeting these pathways can alter host membrane dynamics.
Tailed bacteriophages use nanomotors, or molecular machines that convert chemical energy into physical movement of molecules, to tightly package their DNA genomes into virion procapsids. In this Review, Casjens discusses recent advances in our understanding of the mechanism by which these powerful machines translocate DNA.
Technological advances have revealed many new aspects of bacterial transcription. In this Review, Serrano and colleagues describe the changes in our understanding of bacterial transcription and how this has revealed complexity of regulation that is similar to that observed in eukaryotes.
Streptolysin S (SLS) is a cytolytic toxin and virulence factor produced by mostStreptococcus pyogenesstrains. This Review discusses advances in the study of SLS, the SLS-like peptide family, and its placement within the extended thiazole/oxazole-modified microcin (TOMM) family.
Imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) allows a visualization of the distribution of trace metals, metabolites, lipids, peptides and proteins in biological samples. Here, Watrous and Dorrestein describe the use of various IMS approaches in the analysis of microbial samples, from single cells to complex communities.
