Phage biology articles from across Nature Portfolio

Phage satellites are bacterial mobile genetic elements with integration and replication functions but lack genes for viral structural proteins. Here, Morency et al. show that a phage satellite in Streptococcus thermophilus enhances resistance to virulent phages and can be transferred to other bacterial cells via natural competence, bypassing the need for a helper phage.

Petrovic Fabijan and Abedon propose three foundational pillars — pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and fighting evolution — as an evidence-based framework to advance phage therapy from compelling anecdotes to reproducible clinical outcomes.

Comprehensive assessment of the host range of phages is a prerequisite for their safe and effective use in multiple applications but is rarely undertaken. This Review outlines the molecular and ecological determinants of phage host range and discusses the importance of these determinants for developing phage-based applications.

Phages employ diverse counter-defense strategies to overcome bacterial immune systems. Here, the authors reveal that the phage homing nuclease SegB facilitates immune evasion by promoting the segmental amplification of antidefense loci.

The bacterial type-IV Thoeris system produces, in response to phage infection, a signal molecule that triggers protein degradation and stops viral replication. Here, the authors identify a phage protein that sequesters the signal, thus blocking the antiviral response.

Jumbo phages are bacterial viruses with large genomes, oversized icosahedral capsids and complex tail architectures. Here, the authors use cryo-EM to provide a detailed structural analysis of jumbo phage phiKZ.

Two back-to-back studies by Gallego-del-Sol et al. and Manley et al. demonstrate that arbitrium systems present in bacteriophages engage in cross-communication and modulate lysis–lysogeny decisions, with ecological implications.

This study shows that microgravity modulates phage–host co-evolution and alters their mutational landscapes, facilitating adaptation to such a distinct environmental niche.

If only temperate bacteriophages should be able to lie dormant in bacterial cells, why have two independent groups found thousands of virulent phages hiding in bacterial sequencing data?

This Genome Watch explores how a new antisense oligomer-based approach enables functional genomics of genetically intractable bacteriophages, revealing essential genes and infection mechanisms without requiring genetic modification.

This study reports the identification of two prophage-encoded systems involved in anti-phage defence through Abi.

Phollow is an in vivo tagging approach for marking bacteriophages with fluorescent proteins while new virions are assembled in bacteria, enabling direct observation of phage outbreaks with single-virion resolution. Using Phollow to track phages in situ in model gut microbial communities uncovers spatiotemporal features of transmission dynamics that shape microbiomes.