Bacterial systems biology articles from across Nature Portfolio

Here, the authors use single-cell transcriptomics and imaging to profile the Quorum-sensing (QS) response of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Their findings show that heterogeneity differs at each QS stage and that individuality guides cooperation in bacterial populations.

Lineages within the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex display differences in virulence and drug susceptibility patterns. Here, Banaei-Esfahani et al. compare strains from two lineages and show that small genetic variations are associated with lineage-specific differences in gene expression networks, metabolism, and tolerance to bedaquiline.

Cell-to-cell variability limits efficient microbial production. Here, the authors track single cells to reveal enzyme noise as the main source of bioproduction variation, and by coupling growth to pathway performance, they selectively enrich high producers and substantially boost overall titres.

Here, the authors show that immotile bacteria degrade antibiotics to alter their environment and facilitate nearby motile competitors to expand. As expansion proceeds, the immotile degrader is outcompeted, becoming a hidden driver of community spread.

Bacteria use CRISPR–Cas systems as adaptive defence weapons against attacking phages. A new study shows that under severe stress conditions, Serratia turn off their CRISPR immune system to increase the uptake of potentially beneficial plasmids.

Microbiome research has attracted considerable attention, partially because of the potential to manipulate the microbiome for human health. To fulfil this promise, tractable methods and cautious interpretation of results are needed.

A study in Cell incorporates metabolic networks into a machine-learning approach to provide mechanistic insights into bacterial antibiotic lethality.

It has been assumed that bacteria adapt to nutrient limitation by adjusting the number of ribosomes, no matter what they are being starved for. Instead, two recent studies show that Escherichia coli uses different approaches depending on whether its growth is limited by the availability of carbon, nitrogen or phosphate.