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One promising application of synthetic biologies lies in the production of new drugs from secondary metabolites. In this Opinion article, Takano and colleagues describe potential strategies to spatially and temporally regulate the activity of metabolite biosynthetic modules for the design of efficient drug production systems.
Many bacterial species shut down metabolism and enter a dormant state in order to survive in unfavourable conditions. Exit from dormancy in response to cell wall muropeptide signals from neighbouring cells has recently been observed forBacillus subtilisspores. In this Opinion article, Dworkin and Shah propose that this might be a more general phenomenon.
The evolutionary relationship between the Archaea and the Eukarya remains unclear. Here, Gribaldo and colleagues provide an overview of seven recent studies that investigate the problem but that reach different conclusions. Furthermore, they provide a framework for future studies.
In this Opinion article, the authors describe howMycobacterium tuberculosisinfection of host macrophages affects the balance of host lipid mediators and, in doing so, alters the plasma membrane repair and mitochondrial-damage pathways. As a consequence, bacterial virulence influences whether macrophage death occurs by apoptosis or necrosis.
The identity of the forces that drive chromosome segregation in bacteria has long been unknown. Here, Jun and Wright describe their model in which entropy is the central driving force of chromosome segregation and discuss the role of previously identified DNA segregation proteins in the context of this model.
Recalcitrant dissolved organic matter is now known to be a key element in the global carbon cycle. Here, Nianzhi Jiao and colleagues set out the role of ocean-dwelling microorganisms in the generation of this pool of long-lived carbon, using a new concept they call the microbial carbon pump.
In this Opinion article, Laurent Philippot and colleagues argue that bacterial taxonomic ranks higher than species, such as the phylum, can show ecological coherence, and they discuss the implications of this coherence for bacterial taxonomy, evolution and ecology.
