Microbiology

Screening Envelope Genes Across Primate Genomes Reveals Evolution and Diversity Patterns of Endogenous Retroviruses

1. Saili Chabukswar
2. Nicole Grandi
3. Elena Soddu
4. Liang-Tzung Lin
5. Enzo Tramontano

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The manuscript provides an important assessment of the number and distribution of different retrovirus env genes present in primate genomes in the form of ancient endogenous retroviruses (ERV loci) and the potential role that viral recombination played in the diversification of retrovirus env genes and their propagation in the primate germline over millions of years. The paper convincingly describes how intermixing/recombination occurs with this viruses, representing a conceptual advance with potentially broad implications.

Reviewed by eLife

Teichoic acids in the periplasm and cell envelope of Streptococcus pneumoniae

1. Mai Nguyen
2. Elda Bauda
3. Célia Boyat
4. Cédric Laguri
5. Céline Freton
6. Anne Chouquet
7. Benoit Gallet
8. Morgane Baudoin
9. Yung-Sing Wong
10. Christophe Grangeasse
11. Christine Moriscot
12. Claire Durmort
13. André Zapun
14. Cecile Morlot

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The bacterial cell wall is crucial to maintain viability. It has previously been suggested that Gram positive bacteria have a periplasmic region between the cell membrane and peptidoglycan cell wall that this is maintained by the presence of teichoic acids. In this valuable study, Nguyen et al. make clever use of electron microscopy and metabolic labelling to interrogate the role of teichoic acids in supporting the maintenance of the periplasmic region in Streptococcus pneumoniae. The findings are solid and close some crucial knowledge gaps whilst providing novel tools to further interrogate discrepancies in the field. This work will be of broad interest to microbiologists.

Reviewed by eLife

A general mechanism for initiating the bacterial general stress response

1. Rishika Baral
2. Kristin Ho
3. Ramasamy P Kumar
4. Jesse B Hopkins
5. Maxwell B Watkins
6. Salvatore LaRussa
7. Suhaily Caban-Penix
8. Logan A Calderone
9. Niels Bradshaw

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study combines genetic analysis, biochemistry, and structural modeling to reveal new insights into how changes in protein-protein structure activate signal transduction as part of the bacterial general stress response. The data, which was collected using validated and standard methods, and its interpretations are convincing; however, to fully meet the title's promise, additional experimental evidence is needed to strengthen the proposed model and its potential application to other systems. This manuscript will be of broad interest to microbiologists, structural biologists, and cell biologists.

Reviewed by eLife

Commensal acidification of specific gut regions produces a protective priority effect against enteropathogenic bacterial infection

1. Jane L. Yang
2. Haolong Zhu
3. Puru Sadh
4. Kevin Aumiller
5. Zehra T. Guvener
6. William B. Ludington

Reviewed by PREreview

Human monoclonal antibodies that target clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 hemagglutinin

1. Garazi Peña Alzua
2. André Nicolás León
3. Temima Yellin
4. Disha Bhavsar
5. Madhumathi Loganathan
6. Kaitlyn Bushfield
7. Philip J.M. Brouwer
8. Alesandra J. Rodriguez
9. Trushar Jeevan
10. Richard Webby
11. Christine Marizzi
12. Julianna Han
13. Andrew B. Ward
14. J. Andrew Duty
15. Florian Krammer

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

Variability in intrinsic promoter strength underlies the temporal hierarchy of the Caulobacter SOS response induction

1. Aditya Kamat
2. Asha M. Joseph
3. Deeksha Rathour
4. Anjana Badrinarayanan

Reviewed by PREreview

Deep mutational scanning of EccD ₃ reveals the molecular basis of its essentiality in the mycobacterium ESX secretion system

1. Donovan D. Trinidad
2. Christian B. Macdonald
3. Oren S. Rosenberg
4. James S. Fraser
5. Willow Coyote-Maestas

Reviewed by Review Commons

Comparative mortality of dominant Staphylococcus aureus lineages in human bacteremia and animal infection models

1. Miquel Sánchez-Osuna
2. Marc Bravo
3. María-Alexandra Cañas
4. Andrómeda-Celeste Gómez
5. Inmaculada Gómez-Sánchez
6. José M. Miró
7. Isidre Gibert
8. Oriol Gasch
9. Cristina García-de-la-Mària
10. Daniel Yero
11. Oscar Q. Pich

Reviewed by PREreview

Observation of persister cell histories reveals diverse modes of survival in antibiotic persistence

1. Miki Umetani
2. Miho Fujisawa
3. Reiko Okura
4. Takashi Nozoe
5. Shoichi Suenaga
6. Hidenori Nakaoka
7. Edo Kussell
8. Yuichi Wakamoto

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The work is interesting in its characterization of a large number of antibiotic persisters from a wild-type strain. Previous work was typically limited to directly observe either high persister strains or a smaller number of wt persisters. Therefore, it sheds new light on the elusive non-dormant persisters present in exponentially growing cultures and should help resolve previous conflicting observations.

Reviewed by eLife

An interbacterial cysteine protease toxin inhibits cell growth by targeting type II DNA topoisomerases GyrB and ParE

1. Pin-Yi Song
2. Chia-En Tsai
3. Yung-Chih Chen
4. Yu-Wen Huang
5. Po-Pang Chen
6. Tzu-Haw Wang
7. Chao-Yuan Hu
8. Po-Yin Chen
9. Chuan Ku
10. Kuo-Chiang Hsia
11. See-Yeun Ting

Reviewed by Review Commons