Articles in 2021

In settings with limited resources and a wide range of possible etiologies, molecular technologies offer an effective solution for infectious disease diagnostics, because they are agile, fast and flexible. Health systems that routinely use molecular diagnostics will achieve economies of scale, maximize limited expertize and rapidly respond to new threats.

Hypoxic environments in which anaerobes dwell experience episodic oxygenation, which can be toxic to these organisms, yet many anaerobes have the capacity to tolerate substantial levels of oxygen. In this Review, Lu and Imlay explore the molecular mechanisms by which oxygen impairs anaerobic bacteria and the degree to which anaerobic bacteria protect themselves from oxidative stress.

In this Review, Hancock, Alford and Haney discuss how the complex functional attributes of host defence peptides provide many opportunities for the development of antimicrobial therapeutics, focusing on their emerging antibiofilm properties.

Biofuels produced by conversion of biomass by engineered microorganisms have the potential to replace fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions. In this Review, Keasling and colleagues discuss engineering of metabolic pathways to produce advanced biofuels and approaches to reduce metabolite toxicity and cost and increase titre, rate and yield.

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection is ordinarily controlled by a vigorous immune response; however, HCMV can replicate to high levels and cause end organ disease when the immune system is compromised. In this Review, Griffiths and Reeves discuss HCMV pathogenesis in immunocompromised individuals and emerging strategies to treat and prevent infection and disease.

There is considerable variability in antimicrobial pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, which can pose challenges for treatment of infection and antimicrobial resistance development. In this Review, Holmes and colleagues discuss how precision antimicrobial therapy, including biosensors and individualized treatment, can contribute to antimicrobial stewardship.

A recent study reports the discovery of bat coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, including a virus that displays high sequence identity to SARS-CoV-2 in most genomic regions.

This study reports the evolution of a bacterial enzyme that does not have an inherent RNA-binding activity into a virus-like nucleocapsid protein that efficiently packages and encapsidates copies of its own mRNA.

A recent study reports the efficacy of Wolbachia-infected mosquito deployments for the control of dengue fever in Indonesia.

A recent study finds that sense codon reassignment enables phage resistance and encoded polymer synthesis in Escherichia coli.

Recent updates on the squid–vibrio symbiosis show mechanistic details that underlie the establishment and maintenance of a symbiotic association along the apical surfaces of an animal epithelium.

In this Review Nyholm and McFall-Ngai describe recent advances in understanding the squid–vibrio symbiosis, specifically the strides that have been made in recent years in the study of bobtail squid symbiosis from the host viewpoint.

In this Review, Visick, Stabb and Ruby describe recent advances in understanding the squid–vibrio symbiosis from the symbiont’s perspective.

Analysis of endogenous viral elements reveals that bornaviruses already infected hosts 100 million years ago.

This study finds that a deadly skin disease in red squirrels is associated with a staphylococcal clone often acquired through spillover from other hosts.

Imaging and microfluidics reveal how corals can defend themselves against bacterial pathogens.

This month’s Genome Watch highlights approaches that enable high-resolution mapping of transcription start sites in apicomplexan parasites.

This study reports that Vibrio cholerae outer membrane vesicles protect the cholera toxin from degradative enzymes in the intestinal tract and deliver the active toxin to host cells by a porin-mediated mechanism.

The evolution of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been characterized by the emergence of mutations and so-called variants of concern that impact virus characteristics, including transmissibility and antigenicity. In this Review, members of the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium and colleagues summarize mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, focusing on their impacts on antigenicity and contextualizing them in the protein structure, and discuss them in the context of observed mutation frequencies in global sequence datasets.

Small antibacterial molecules termed bacteriocins can influence microbiome composition by providing an advantage to bacteriocin producers over bacteriocin-sensitive strains. In this Review, Peschel and colleagues provide an overview of the types of bacteriocins, their costs and benefits, and how they may provide new avenues for antibacterial drug development.