Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Gram-negative bacteria is a potent activator of the innate immune response. Clare Bryant and colleagues discuss recent exciting data that have revealed the structural basis of the recognition of LPS by the Toll-like receptor 4–MD2 complex.
The increase in allergic diseases that has occurred in developing countries in recent years has been attributed to a decrease in exposure to the microorganisms in the environment. Blaser and Falkow reflect that this increase, as well as the ongoing obesity epidemic and increased susceptibility to infectious disease, might instead be the result of changes in the human microbiota.
In fungi, nuclei move in a microtubule- and microtubule motor-dependent manner. In this Review, Judith Berman and Amy Gladfelter discuss how fungi use the movement of intact nuclei within and between cells to control the integrity, ploidy and assortment of specific genomes or individual chromosomes.
Efforts to monitor the range of infectious diseases that affect international travellers and the factors that determine infection rates will provide an evidence base from which more effective preventative measures can be developed. Torresi and Leder review the main findings of one such effort, the GeoSentinel surveillance network.
Photo-oxidative stress caused by singlet oxygen, a type of reactive oxygen species that is generated by energy transfer to molecular oxygen, can damage cellular components, leading to cell death. In this Review, Donohue and Ziegelhoffer describe the recent advances made in characterizing the bacterial response mechanisms to photo-oxidative stress.
The emergence of drug-resistantPlasmodiumparasites has made the treatment of malaria difficult in some areas. One of the last drugs to which there is no full resistance is artemisinin. Fidock and Eastman describe artemisinin-based combination therapies that aim to decrease the occurrence of drug resistance and that have raised the possibility of malaria eradication.
Latent HIV-1 reservoirs, in which the viral genome becomes permanently integrated into the host chromosome, are established early during primary infection and pose a substantial obstacle to the eradication of HIV-1 infection. Here, José Alcamí and colleagues discuss the mechanisms that are associated with HIV-1 latency and outline strategies for targeting HIV-1 reservoirs.
