Reviews & Analysis

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  • This review discusses the principles of phase separation and highlights how it impacts diverse processes in fungi.

    • Mae I. Staples
    • Corey Frazer
    • Richard J. Bennett
    Review Article
  • Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) has two modes of infection: productive and latent. Tracking HCMV infection with single-cell transcriptomics revealed that infection outcome (productive or latent) is based on viral gene expression levels at early stages of infection. Moreover, intrinsic levels of interferon-stimulated genes affect viral gene expression and the outcome of infection.

    Research Briefing
  • Cytotoxic CD8+ T cells reduce the average lifespan of productively infected cells during acute simian immunodeficiency virus infection (a primate model of human immunodeficiency virus infection). However, they are ineffective at preventing the establishment of a persistent reservoir of latently infected cells under long-term antiretroviral therapy.

    Research Briefing
  • Chemotaxis towards the interspecies quorum sensing signal autoinducer 2 (AI-2) promotes gut colonization by Escherichia coli and is linked to fructoselysine metabolism. The differential ability of E. coli strains to chemotactically respond to AI-2 further leads to niche segregation and co-existence of E. coli strains in the murine gut.

    Research Briefing
  • A combined quantitative and isotope-tracking proteomics approach illuminates how scarce nitrogen is allocated to protein biosynthesis by members of an ocean-surface microbial community. We identify taxon-specific substrate preferences and a distinct subset of functions — particularly infrastructure for protein production, folding and turnover — that constitute the bulk of community nitrogen demand.

    Research Briefing
  • Candidatus Methanoperedens nitroreducens’, an anaerobic methanotrophic archaeon, sectors itself into two morphologically and functionally distinct populations that enable adaptation and cross-species interactions in a dynamic bioreactor ecosystem.

    • Lisa Y. Stein
    News & Views
  • New World arenaviruses are pathogens capable of zoonotic infections that cause viral haemorrhagic fevers, which are frequently lethal in humans. However, a recombinant live-attenuated pentavalent vaccine shows promising efficacy against infection.

    • Jérémie Prévost
    • Bryce M. Warner
    • David Safronetz
    News & Views
  • This work shows that Akkermansia muciniphila and its metabolite, harmaline, upregulate the production of bile acid-coenzyme A: amino acid N-acyltransferase (BAAT) in hepatocytes. As a result of enhanced BAAT production, increased synthesis of conjugated primary bile acids suppresses the severe systemic inflammation caused by severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus infection.

    Research Briefing
  • Longitudinal sampling of patients with hepatitis C virus before and after elimination of the virus reveals links between functions of the gut microbiome and liver disease.

    • Kira L. Newman
    • Nobuhiko Kamada
    News & Views
  • Prochlorococcus is the most abundant photosynthetic organism in the ocean, but single-cell measurements and model simulations reveal that this organism might obtain only 20% of the carbon required for growth from photosynthesis in the deep water column.

    • María del Carmen Muñoz-Marín
    News & Views
  • Pandemic viruses cause major global disease burden and economic disruption. We investigated pandemic HIV-1(M) to understand its unique characteristics by comparing it with HIV strains that did not achieve pandemic human-to-human spread. We observed structural adaptations in the HIV-1(M) capsid that reduce detection by innate immune sensors.

    Research Briefing
  • In this Perspective, the authors discuss the importance and current challenges of using genomic data to predict the emergence of infectious disease outbreaks, and propose the next steps to integrate genomics and modelling for infectious diseases forecasting.

    • Jessica E. Stockdale
    • Pengyu Liu
    • Caroline Colijn
    Perspective
  • The authors review archaeal morphology, surface features, internal organization and cell division, discussing the state of the art and future research directions.

    • Marleen van Wolferen
    • Andre Arashiro Pulschen
    • Sonja-Verena Albers
    Review Article
  • Efforts to futureproof global microbial biodiversity are proposed, in particular in managed landscapes, to monitor, manage and restore the soil fungal microbiome.

    • Colin Averill
    • Mark A. Anthony
    • Tom W. Crowther
    Perspective
  • Probiotics given to preterm infants not only persist but restructure early-life microbiota, which presents an opportunity to optimize developmental outcomes and a responsibility to fully understand the long-term consequences.

    • Kaitlyn Oliphant
    • Erika C. Claud
    News & Views
  • A computational analysis of biosynthetic gene clusters with unique structural features unveils new natural product scaffolds, leading to the discovery of an antibiotic targeting BamA with activity against Gram-negative pathogens.

    • Kristen A. Muñoz
    • Paul J. Hergenrother
    News & Views
  • Most prokaryotes cannot easily be grown in the laboratory and distributed as pure cultures. Thus, these organisms could not be officially named. A code of nomenclature — the SeqCode — provides paths to name such organisms on the basis of genomic data, aiming to unify field and laboratory studies in microbiology.

    Research Briefing