Microbiology

Fast evolution of SOS-independent multi-drug resistance in bacteria

1. Le Zhang
2. Yunpeng Guan
3. YuenYee Cheng
4. Nural N Cokcetin
5. Amy L Bottomley
6. Andrew Robinson
7. Elizabeth J Harry
8. Antoine M van Oijen
9. Qian Peter Su
10. Dayong Jin

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a valuable observation of how deletion of a major repair protein in bacteria can facilitate the rise of mutations that confer resistance against a range of different antibiotics. The data presented are convincing, and the authors addressed the concerns raised by the reviewers in their resubmission, improving the strength of their findings.

Reviewed by eLife

Identifying a novel mechanism of L-leucine uptake in Mycobacterium tuberculosis using a chemical genomic approach

1. Nisheeth Agarwal
2. Himanshu Gogoi
3. Eeba
4. Linus Augustin
5. Md. Younus Khan
6. Yashwant Kumar
7. Sayan Kumar Bhowmick
8. Bappaditya Dey

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  By performing a chemical screen of an FDA-approved library of small molecules against a leucine-dependent Mtb strain, this work discovered that semapimod inhibits Mtb growth by impairing leucine import. The work is useful because it connects leucine uptake with the cell wall lipids in Mtb; however, it remains incomplete as the evidence supporting semapimod's ability to target leucine uptake needs more substantial proof. The work requires significant experimental evidence to identify leucine transporter(s) and determine how PDIM participates in leucine uptake.

Reviewed by eLife

Caffeic acid phenethyl ester protects Clostridioides difficile infection by toxin inhibition and microbiota modulation

1. Yan Guo
2. Yong Zhang
3. Guizhen Wang
4. Hongtao Liu
5. Jianfeng Wang
6. Xuming Deng
7. Liuqin He
8. Jiazhang Qiu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study by Guo and colleagues reports the inhibitory activity of caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) against TcdB, a key toxin produced by Clostridioides difficile. C. difficile infections are a major public health concern, and this manuscript provides interesting data on toxin inhibition by CAPE, a potentially promising therapeutic alternative for this disease. The strength of the evidence to support the conclusions is solid, with some concerns about the moderate effects on the mouse infection model and direct binding assays of CAPE to the toxin.

Reviewed by eLife

Structure of a new capsid form and comparison with A-, B-, and C-capsids clarify herpesvirus assembly

1. Alexander Stevens
2. Saarang Kashyap
3. Ethan Crofut
4. Ana Lucia Alvarez-Cabrera
5. Jonathan Jih
6. Yun-Tao Liu
7. Z. Hong Zhou

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

The hepatitis E virus capsid protein ORF2 counteracts cell-intrinsic antiviral responses to enable persistence in hepatocytes

1. Ann-Kathrin Mehnert
2. Sebastian Stegmaier
3. Carlos Ramirez
4. Vladimir Gonçalves Magalhães
5. Carla Siebenkotten
6. Jungen Hu
7. Ana Luisa Costa
8. Daniel Kirrmaier
9. Michael Knop
10. Xianfang Wu
11. Thibault Tubiana
12. Carl Herrmann
13. Marco Binder
14. Viet Loan Dao Thi

Reviewed by Review Commons

Influenza virus antagonizes self sensing by RIG-I to enhance viral replication

1. Mitchell P. Ledwith
2. Thomas Nipper
3. Kaitlin A. Davis
4. Deniz Uresin
5. Anastassia V. Komarova
6. Andrew Mehle

Reviewed by PREreview

A prophage-encoded anti-phage defense system that prevents phage DNA packaging by targeting the terminase complex

1. Gil Azulay
2. Nadejda Sigal
3. Keren Tzohar Rabinovich
4. Dan Koenigsfeld
5. Olga Stadnyuk
6. Avijit Das
7. Polina Lisitzin
8. Einat Biderman
9. Ilya Borovok
10. Anat A. Herskovits

Reviewed by preLights, PREreview

Identifying genetic variations in emm89 Streptococcus pyogenes associated with severe invasive infections

1. Masayuki Ono
2. Masaya Yamaguchi
3. Daisuke Motooka
4. Yujiro Hirose
5. Kotaro Higashi
6. Tomoko Sumitomo
7. Tohru Miyoshi-Akiyama
8. Rumi Okuno
9. Takahiro Yamaguchi
10. Ryuji Kawahara
11. Hitoshi Otsuka
12. Noriko Nakanishi
13. Yu Kazawa
14. Chikara Nakagawa
15. Ryo Yamaguchi
16. Hiroo Sakai
17. Yuko Matsumoto
18. Tadayoshi Ikebe
19. Shigetada Kawabata

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides an important and timely analysis of invasive and non-invasive Streptococcus pyogenes emm89 isolates, which have become a dominant serotype in the past decade. Using genome sequencing of 311 strains from Japan and comparing them with 666 global strains, the authors present compelling evidence in support of the identification of genetic factors linked to the invasive phenotype of emm89. The findings are both theoretically and practically significant in medical microbiology.

Reviewed by eLife

Addressing efficacy of everyday hygiene cleansing products in context of sustainable handwashing behaviour in the post-pandemic era

1. Sandip B. Pathak
2. Shafali Arora
3. Jabir Sayyed
4. Urmi Trivedi
5. Lincy Sherin
6. Nitish Kumar
7. Harshinie W. Jayasekera
8. Amitabha Majumdar
9. Sayandip Mukherjee

Reviewed by PREreview, Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

Finding the known unknowns: minimal machine learning models of resistance identify novel antibiotic resistance discovery opportunities in Klebsiella pneumoniae

1. Kristina Kordova
2. Caitlin Collins
3. Julian Parkhill

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases