Microbiology

MX2 restricts HIV-1 and herpes simplex virus type 1 by forming cytoplasmic biomolecular condensates that mimic nuclear pore complexes

1. George D. Moschonas
2. Louis Delhaye
3. Robin Cooreman
4. Franziska Hüsers
5. Anayat Bhat
6. Delphine De Sutter
7. Eef Parthoens
8. Anne-Sophie Desmet
9. Aleksandra Maciejczuk
10. Hanna Grzesik
11. Saskia Lippens
12. Zeger Debyser
13. Beate Sodeik
14. Sven Eyckerman
15. Xavier Saelens

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

Purging viral latency by a bifunctional HSV-vectored therapeutic vaccine in chronically SIV-infected macaques

1. Ziyu Wen
2. Pingchao Li
3. Yue Yuan
4. Congcong Wang
5. Minchao Li
6. Haohang Wang
7. Minjuan Shi
8. Yizi He
9. Mingting Cui
10. Ling Chen
11. Caijun Sun

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this useful study, the authors tested a novel approach to eradicate the HIV reservoir by constructing a herpes simplex virus (HSV)-based therapeutic vaccine. The approach was tested in experimental infections of chronically SIV-infected, antiretroviral therapy (ART)-treated macaques with extent of rebound after ART interruption as a measure of the size of the HIV reservoir. While mean viremia at rebound was lower in the HSV vaccine-treated group, the evidence presented appear to be be incomplete because the group size was small and the viral load at rebound was highly variable.

Reviewed by eLife

Discovery of the 1-naphthylamine biodegradation pathway reveals a broad-substrate-spectrum enzyme catalyzing 1-naphthylamine glutamylation

1. Shu-Ting Zhang
2. Shi-Kai Deng
3. Tao Li
4. Megan E Maloney
5. De-Feng Li
6. Jim C Spain
7. Ning-Yi Zhou

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work identifies a p. aeruginosa strain and enzyme that can degrade 1-naphthylamine, a harmful industrial pollutant. Data resulting from in vivo and structural approaches are compelling, but additional mutagenesis would further test and establish the broad substrate specificity of NpaA1. With this additional data, this paper would be of high interest to biologists and enzymologists studying biodegradation of industrial pollutants.

Reviewed by eLife

Investigating Novel Streptomyces Bacteriophage Endolysins as Potential Antimicrobial Agents

1. Jindanuch Maneekul
2. Amanda Chiaha
3. Rachel Hughes
4. Faith Labry
5. Joshua Saito
6. Matthew Almendares
7. Brenda N. Banda
8. Leslie Lopez
9. Nyeomi McGaskey
10. Melizza Miranda
11. Jenil Rana
12. Brandon R. Zadeh
13. Lee E. Hughes

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

A chemically induced attenuated strain of Candida albicans generates robust protective immune responses and prevents systemic candidiasis development

1. Swagata Bose
2. Satya Ranjan Sahu
3. Abinash Dutta
4. Narottam Acharya

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents a useful strategy in which the authors devised a simple method to attenuate Candida albicans and deliver a live whole-cell vaccine in a mouse model of systemic candidiasis. The reviewers are not convinced about the completeness of the study: the strength of the evidence is incomplete and could be augmented with additional experiments to more fully characterize vaccine efficacy and host immune responses.

Reviewed by eLife

Decoding the complexity of delayed wound healing following Enterococcus faecalis infection

1. Cenk Celik
2. Stella Tue Ting Lee
3. Frederick Reinhart Tanoto
4. Mark Veleba
5. Kimberly Kline
6. Guillaume Thibault

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Wounds are commonly infected, which can lead to delayed or poor wound healing, thereby significantly impacting morbidity and overall quality of life for patients. This manuscript uses single cell RNA sequencing to try to understand the impact of infection on various cell types during wound healing in a mouse model. The methodology is solid and the results provide a valuable 'atlas' of the cellular changes associated with infected and uninfected wounds which will be of interest to the field.

Reviewed by eLife

Characterisation and comparison of semen microbiota and bacterial load in men with infertility, recurrent miscarriage, or proven fertility

1. Shahriar Mowla
2. Linda Farahani
3. Tharu Tharakan
4. Rhianna Davies
5. Gonçalo D S Correia
6. Yun S Lee
7. Samit Kundu
8. Shirin Khanjani
9. Emad Sindi
10. Raj Rai
11. Lesley Regan
12. Dalia Khalifa
13. Ralf Henkel
14. Suks Minhas
15. Waljit S Dhillo
16. Jara Ben Nagi
17. Phillip R Bennett
18. David A MacIntyre
19. Channa N Jayasena

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study reports a potential connection between the seminal microbiome and sperm quality/male fertility. The data are generally convincing, but the statistical methods employed need further justification. This study will be of interest to clinicians and biomedical researchers who work on microbiome and male fertility.

Reviewed by eLife

A Plasmodium falciparum MORC protein complex modulates epigenetic control of gene expression through interaction with heterochromatin

1. Maneesh Kumar Singh
2. Victoria Ann Bonnell
3. Israel Tojal Da Silva
4. Verônica Feijoli Santiago
5. Miriam Santos Moraes
6. Jack Adderley
7. Christian Doerig
8. Giuseppe Palmisano
9. Manuel Llinas
10. Celia RS Garcia

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study provides valuable insights into how chromatin-bound PfMORC controls gene expression in the asexual blood stage of Plasmodium falciparum. By interacting with key nuclear proteins, PfMORC is predicted to affect expression of genes relating to host invasion and variable subtelomeric gene families. Correlating transcriptomic data with in vivo chromatin analysis, the study provides convincing evidence for the role of PfMORC in epigenetic transcriptional regulation.

Reviewed by eLife

The Spx stress regulator confers high-level β-lactam resistance and decreases susceptibility to last-line antibiotics in methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus

1. Tobias Krogh Nielsen
2. Ida Birkjær Petersen
3. Lijuan Xu
4. Maria Disen Barbuti
5. Viktor Mebus
6. Anni Justh
7. Abdulelah Ahmed Alqarzaee
8. Nicolas Jacques
9. Cécile Oury
10. Vinai Thomas
11. Morten Kjos
12. Camilla Henriksen
13. Dorte Frees

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

Real-time identification of epistatic interactions in SARS-CoV-2 from large genome collections

1. Gabriel Innocenti
2. Marco Galardini

Reviewed by Review Commons