Articles in 2021

This study shows that hydrogen produced in termite guts can be used by mound bacteria.

In this Review, Chevallereau et al. explore the composition and evolution of phage communities as well as their roles in controlling the population and evolutionary dynamics of bacterial communities. They highlight the need for greater ecological realism in laboratory studies to capture the complexity of microbial communities that thrive in natural environments.

Humankind relies on host–microbe symbioses and the ecosystems they form for diverse services, including food and health. It is important to understand how symbioses will fare in a world facing rapid global change and how adaptation and resilience of symbioses can be aided to secure their services for future generations.

A recent study finds that the gut microbiota generates diurnal rhythms in innate immune responses that synchronize with host feeding rhythms in mice, allowing the host to anticipate exposure to pathogens.

This month’s Under the Lens discusses the potential of in silico feedback control applied to individual microbial cells, highlighting its use for study of single-cell dynamics and patterning behaviours.

In this Review, Avalos and colleagues discuss different aspects of microbial physiology that can have an impact on engineered metabolic pathways, and they describe instances in which natural or engineered physiological traits in host organisms have been harnessed to benefit engineered metabolic pathways for chemical production.

This study shows that flagellate epibionts channel nutrient flows towards their large diatom host.

A study using synthetic communities shows that the root microbiome exhibits host preferences and that this correlates with invasiveness.

This study shows that IgA responses push gut fungi towards mutualism and curtail invasiveness.

This study shows that co-existence of the four Lactobacillus species in the gut of the honey bee is mainly dependent on the pollen-rich diet of the host, and mediated by the specialization of the gut symbionts towards distinct pollen-derived nutrients.

In this Review, Lovley and Holmes discuss the physiological and phylogenetic diversity of electroactive microorganisms, and their mechanisms for extracellular electron transfer in various electromicrobiomes.

Two recent studies provide evidence that liquid–liquid phase separation during viral replication is a target for antiviral therapy.

A recent study uncovers that sensing of host amino acids in Aeromonas veronii regulates bacterial motility, enhancing gut colonization of zebrafish.

Oomycetes use a slicing mechanism depending on polarized hyphae to invade plant hosts.

In marine sponges, higher microbiome diversity and maintenance of host innate immunity was associated with resilience to warming and acidification.

This study shows that phage predation of Klebsiella pneumoniae is regulated by capsule type and that capsule loss promotes plasmid conjugation.

A hallmark of retroviral replication is establishment of the proviral state, wherein a DNA copy of the viral RNA genome is stably incorporated into a host cell chromosome by the viral enzyme integrase. In this Review, Maertens, Engelman and Cherepanov explore the structure and function of retroviral integrase and how this knowledge is informing the development of integrase inhibitors for the treatment of HIV infection.

This study reports that bacteriocins are encoded in temperate phages, and that they can be transferred between bacterial hosts, which provides a competitive advantage.

This article shows that a plant fungus manipulates caterpillars to ensure its spread.

This month’s Genome Watch highlights current research into the genomic and functional diversity of type VI secretion systems in Vibrio cholerae.