Articles in 2015

In this Review, Fuhrman and colleagues summarize our current understanding of marine microbial community dynamics at various scales — from hours to decades — and consider how long-term time series illustrate important ecological concepts such as community resilience and seasonality, as well as interactions among microorganisms in the global oceans.

Plasmodium falciparum, the malaria parasite, relies on post-translational modifications of proteins to regulate several fundamental aspects of its life cycle and pathogenesis. Here, Doerig and colleagues focus on the roles of protein phosphorylation, acetylation, methylation and lipidation inP. falciparumbiology, and they discuss how the enzymes that mediate these modifications can be targeted by novel antimalarial drugs.

This study identifies CyRPA as the anchor of an essentialPlasmodium falciparuminvasion complex at the merozoite surface.

This month's Genome Watch explores how genetic variation in restriction–modification systems fromStreptococcus pneumoniaecontributes to the defence against phages and to bacterial virulence.

This study identifies bacteriophage exclusion (BREX) as a novel bacterial defence system that protects against lytic and lysogenic phage infection.

Marine viruses have important roles in modulating the dynamics of microbial life in the global oceans. Brum and Sullivan discuss the recent technological advances that are facilitating an accelerated pace of discovery in marine virology, including metagenomics and several cultivation-dependent and cultivation-independent tools.

Bassler and colleagues show that a small regulatory RNA fromVibrio harveyiregulates multiple target mRNAs by distinct mechanisms, which influences quorum sensing dynamics.

A study reports the discovery of a new antibiotic with a novel mechanism of action and a low propensity to select for resistance.

A new study shows that the cyclic provision of a single glycan by the Hawaiian bobtail squid to its bioluminescent symbiontVibrio fischericontributes to the persistence of their lifelong symbiosis.

In this Opinion article, Errington reviews the studies that describe the role of MreB in the determination and maintenance of rod cell shape in bacteria, and he presents a model to reconcile the conflicting data.

The base excision repair (BER) pathway is the most important mechanism for the repair of oxidative DNA damage, which is frequently encountered by host-adapted bacterial pathogens. Here, van der Veen and Tang review DNA repair in the human pathogensMycobacterium tuberculosis, Helicobacter pylori and Neisseria meningitidis, highlighting common and distinct mechanisms.