Microbiology

Functional genomics reveals strain-specific genetic requirements conferring hypoxic growth in Mycobacterium intracellulare

1. Yoshitaka Tateishi
2. Yuriko Ozeki
3. Akihito Nishiyama
4. Yuta Morishige
5. Yusuke Minato
6. Anthony D Baughn
7. Sohkichi Matsumoto

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study makes a valuable contribution by elucidating the genetic determinants of growth and fitness across multiple clinical strains of Mycobacterium intracellulare, an understudied non-tuberculous mycobacterium. Using transposon sequencing (Tn-seq), the authors identify a core set of 131 genes essential for bacterial adaptation to hypoxia, providing a convincing foundation for anti-mycobacterial drug discovery. Minor concerns remain regarding the presentation of Fig. 8C and the interpretation of data related to hypoxia.

Reviewed by eLife

Rab11B is required for binding and entry of recent H3N2, but not H1N1, influenza A isolates

1. Allyson H Turner
2. Sara A Jaffrani
3. Hannah C Kubinski
4. Deborah P Ajayi
5. Matthew B Owens
6. Conor D Fanuele
7. Madeline P McTigue
8. Cailey L Appenzeller
9. Addington Bowling
10. Hannah W Despres
11. Madaline M Schmidt
12. David J Shirley
13. Jessica W Crothers
14. Ramiro Barrantes-Reynolds
15. Emily A Bruce

Reviewed by Review Commons

Stratification of viral shedding patterns in saliva of COVID-19 patients

1. Hyeongki Park
2. Raiki Yoshimura
3. Shoya Iwanami
4. Kwang Su Kim
5. Keisuke Ejima
6. Naotoshi Nakamura
7. Kazuyuki Aihara
8. Yoshitsugu Miyazaki
9. Takashi Umeyama
10. Ken Miyazawa
11. Takeshi Morita
12. Koichi Watashi
13. Christopher B Brooke
14. Ruian Ke
15. Shingo Iwami
16. Taiga Miyazaki

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work attempts to understand observed variability in oral shedding of SARS-CoV-2 and suggests that routine clinical factors are not determinative. The evidence supporting the conclusion is solid though the limited clinical heterogeneity of the included cohorts, the lack of COVID vaccination, and the absence of comprehensive viral load data for model training, makes the results difficult to generalize to contemporaneous COVID-19 conditions. This study may be of interest to virologists, public health officials and clinicians.

Reviewed by eLife

Apparent cooperativity between human CMV virions introduces errors in conventional methods of calculating multiplicity of infection

1. Christopher Peterson
2. Joshua Miller
3. Brent J Ryckman
4. Vitaly V Ganusov

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors combine experiments and mathematical modeling to determine how the infectivity of human cytomegalovirus scales with the viral concentration in the inoculum, i.e., considering the multiplicity of infection (MOI). They propose and test different model assumptions to explain a mechanism termed "apparent cooperativity" of virions based on an observed super-linear increase in the number of infected cells with increasing inocula. The authors present a solid study showing valuable findings for virologists and quantitative scientists working on the analysis and interpretation of viral infection dynamics. Some of the presented aspects would benefit from additional clarification.

Reviewed by eLife

Nanoscopy Reveals Heparan Sulfate Clusters as Docking Sites for SARS-CoV-2 Attachment and Entry

1. Sue Han
2. Xin Wang
3. Tiansheng Li
4. Ammar Mohseni
5. Ivan Kosik
6. Chung Yu Chan
7. Alberto Domingo López-Muñoz
8. Jessica Matthias
9. Reid Suddaby
10. Zhixiong Wang
11. Albert J Jin
12. Christian A Wurm
13. Jonathan W Yewdell
14. Ling-Gang Wu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a role for heparin sulfate in SARS-CoV-2 entry that runs counter to prevailing data in the field. If the conclusions were firmly supported by the data, the work would be a significant contribution to the field. While the use of diverse cellular models, virological tools, and robust microscopy approaches constitutes a useful data set, the proposed model remains incomplete and requires clarification of entry mechanisms, host factors, and viral variant-specific fusion pathways to substantiate it against established entry models.

Reviewed by eLife

Reactive Oxygen Detoxification Contributes to Mycobacterium abscessus Antibiotic Survival

1. Nicholas A Bates
2. Ronald Rodriguez
3. Rama Drwich
4. Abigail Ray
5. Sarah A Stanley
6. Bennett H Penn

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Using a transposon sequencing (TN-seq) approach, the authors identified key genetic determinants of drug tolerance in Mycobacterium abscessus. Given that M. abscessus is inherently resistant to multiple antibiotics, this valuable study makes a significant contribution by uncovering how antibiotic tolerance is linked to reactive oxygen species (ROS) in this non-tuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) species. The solid findings further strengthen the growing evidence that ROS play a central role in the mechanism of antibiotic action and tolerance in mycobacteria. However, the manuscript would benefit from improved clarity of presentation and corrections in the reference section.

Reviewed by eLife

Glycolysis-dependent Sulfur Metabolism Orchestrates Morphological Plasticity and Virulence in Fungi

1. Dhrumi Shah
2. Nikita Rewatkar
3. Adishree M
4. Siddhi Gupta
5. Sudharsan Mathivathanan
6. Sayantani Biswas
7. Sriram Varahan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors identify a novel, conserved link between glycolytic flux and sulfur amino acid metabolism that governs fungal morphological differentiation independently of the cAMP-PKA pathway. This represents an important conceptual advance in understanding metabolic control of development and virulence. While the evidence supporting this connection is compelling, the mechanistic basis of how glycolysis regulates the Met30/Met4 axis requires further experimental clarification.

Reviewed by eLife

Vitamin B ₂ Production by Vaginal Lactobacilli Promotes Symbiosis

1. Caroline E.M.K. Dricot
2. Denise M. Selegato
3. Tim Van Rillaer
4. Eline Cauwenberghs
5. Isabel Erreygers
6. Margo Hiel
7. Amber Brauer-Nikonow
8. Annelies Breynaert
9. Stefanie Wijnants
10. Isabel Pintelon
11. Sandra Condori
12. Sarah Ahannach
13. Thies Gehrmann
14. Sam Bakelants
15. Nina Hermans
16. Patrick Van Dijck
17. Michael France
18. Irina Spacova
19. Jacques Ravel
20. Michael Zimmermann
21. Sarah Lebeer

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Microfluidic Droplet-Assisted Single-Cell Raman Sorting for High-Throughput Screening of Functional Lignin-Degrading Microbes

1. Tingting Jia
2. Manling Zhang
3. Huicheng Chen
4. Ling Lu
5. Lin Wang
6. Yunhua Wang
7. Guoxia Zheng

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Early Pregnancy Marks Significant Shifts in the Oral Microbiome

1. Shani Finkelstein
2. Sigal Frishman
3. Sondra Turjeman
4. Oshrit Shtossel
5. Evgeny Tikhonov
6. Meital Nuriel-Ohayon
7. Yishay Pinto
8. Polina Popova
9. Alexandra S. Tkachuk
10. Elena A. Vasukova
11. Anna D. Anopova
12. Evgenii A. Pustozerov
13. Tatiana M. Pervunina
14. Elena N. Grineva
15. Moshe Hod
16. Betty Schwartz
17. Eran Hadar
18. Omry Koren
19. Yoram Louzoun

Reviewed by Arcadia Science