News & Comment

This study reports that an enzyme expressed by a member of the gut microbiota degrades testosterone and might thus be linked to depressive symptoms.

This month’s Genome Watch highlights the systematic discovery of defence systems, paving the way to decode novel genetic functions and further our understanding of microbial warfare.

This month’s Under the Lens discusses a few of the growing number of recent molecular simulation studies that have made substantial contributions towards our mechanistic understanding of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.

Two recent papers implicate Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) as a trigger for the development of multiple sclerosis and provide mechanistic insights into EBV-mediated development of the disease.

A study in healthy infants finds that early viral infection changes the respiratory tract microbiota and predisposes to further infections.

A single-cell, single-molecule study of SARS-CoV-2 replication in cell lines finds that a few cells are responsible for the majority of virus production and that genomic viral RNA is surprisingly stable.

A study investigating the microbiome of contaminated soil finds that auxilliary metabolic genes of viruses contribute to pesticide degradation.

This month’s Genome Watch article highlights integrative approaches for discovering metabolites and microorganisms that improve cognitive performance.

This study compares an equine influenza virus shortly after its jump into horses with a contemporary strain, showing how it adapted to the new host.

This study describes how a marine cyanobacterium carries out nitrogen and carbon fixation at the same time.

This study determines how the climate influences the transmission of Wolbachia in flies.

A recent study found that constituents of the gut virome are negatively associated with seroconversion following rotavirus vaccination, possibly explaining the diminished effectiveness of rotavirus vaccines in low- and middle-income countries.

The International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP) has recently altered long-standing phylum names and given no guidance for taxonomy of uncultured or imperfectly cultured archaea and bacteria, disrupting progress towards a universal system of microbial taxonomy. Inclusion of new members into ICSP may help it to keep up to date.