Volume 4 Issue 6, June 2019

A class of drugs approved to treat schizophrenia can cause rapid loss of the pilus, an essential virulence factor necessary for the disease-causing properties in the strict human pathogen Neisseria meningitidis.

The secondary metabolite cepacin A is the essential compound made by Burkholderia ambifaria needed for biocontrol of plant pathogens. In this organism, genes responsible for virulence and for cepacin A biosynthesis reside on different replicons, allowing for the engineering of avirulent mutants that retain their biocontrol properties.

A recent study finds that viruses cooperate altruistically to overcome innate host immunity and that this can be explained in the same way we explain altruism between animals.

Differences in microbial genomes can result in vastly different phenotypes and functions. Consequently, it is critical to understand the genome variations that differentiate microbial strains. Here, we discuss recent exciting advances that enable structural variant measurement, their associated phenotypes and the horizon for future discovery.

This Review highlights some of the advances that have been made towards understanding the complexity of differential interferon (IFN) signalling inputs and outputs as well as some of the strategies viruses use to interfere with or circumvent IFN-induced antiviral responses.

Characterization of air and soil microbial communities above and within an Antarctic valley revealed that airborne inputs to the system cannot fully explain local soil diversity and that fungi were sourced from a larger regional pool compared to bacteria, indicating limited microbial dispersal in this region.

Using a small interfering RNA-based library screening in interferon-treated cells, the authors identified human tripartite-containing motif 5α as potent restriction factor that inhibits HIV-1 DNA synthesis and infection in a capsid- and immunoproteasome-dependent manner.

A combination of genetic analyses of Anopheles species across sub-Saharan Africa, time-series quantification of Plasmodium falciparum prevalence in mosquitoes and Granger causality statistical testing reveals that changes in the genetic structure of a population over short ecological timescales drive Plasmodium dynamics in nature.

A yeast surface display screen identifies five Aedes aegypti salivary proteins that are antigenic in mice repeatedly bitten by these mosquitoes. Antiserum against one of these proteins, Anopheles gambiae bacteria-responsive 1, partially protected mice against lethal mosquito-borne Zika virus infection.

CRISPR spacers can recombine with phage target sequences to mediate a form of specialized transduction that can promote transfer of CRISPR elements to other bacteria in the population.

Strain-level analysis of gut and oral microbiomes from individuals living in the Fiji Islands identified shared genomes particularly within households, indicating potential microbial transmission within social networks.

Phenothiazines inhibit Type IV pili function in Neisseria meningitidis and protect against bacterial colonization of blood vessels and lethality during infection.

Proteomic analysis coupled to RNA interference screening identifies the host exon–junction complex recycling factor partner of Y14 and mago (PYM1) as antiviral against three flaviruses, whose capsids interact with PYM1 and interfere with its ability to trigger nonsense-mediated decay-dependent degradation of viral RNA.

A comparison of genomes and bioactivities of over 60 Burkholderia ambifaria strains enables the identification of the biosynthetic gene cluster responsible for the production of cepacin, an antimicrobial that can protect plants against Pythium infection.

The use of a general social evolution model to analyse how natural selection acts on virus-induced interferon (IFN) shutdown, combined with in vitro and in vivo vesicular stomatitis virus infections, reveals that the viral ability to escape IFN-based immunity is a social trait.

In sandy, permeable sediments, which frequently cycle between oxic and anoxic conditions, there is an uncoupling of fermentative and respiratory bacteria, and bacterial, rather than microalgal, fermentation drives the accumulation of hydrogen in this environment.

The isolation and characterization of seven monoclonal antibodies that recognize the lateral surface of the influenza virus neuraminidase (NA) head reveal that, even in absence of NA-inhibiting activity, anti-NA antibodies can provide protection and drive antigenic drift at the lateral surface of the NA.

Here, the authors developed an automated, high-throughput method for the sorting of single live cells based on their functional phenotype for downstream genomics or cultivation. Application of the platform to murine gut microbiota samples identified a diverse community of mucin degraders.

Cryo-electron tomography was used to study the initial steps of infection of Salmonella enterica serovar Salmonella Typhimurium with phage P22 and reveals how the phage forms a channel through the host outer and inner membranes to translocate its genome into the bacterial cytoplasm.

Variable susceptibility to Salmonella infection across genetically similar mice from commercial vendors is due to differential colonization of the gut microbiome by endogenous Enterobacteriaceae.