Microbiology

Hosts manipulate lifestyle switch and pathogenicity heterogeneity of opportunistic pathogens in the single-cell resolution

1. Ziguang Wang
2. Shuai Li
3. Sheng Zhang
4. Tianyu Zhang
5. Yujie Wu
6. Anqi Liu
7. Kui Wang
8. Xiaowen Ji
9. Haiqun Cao
10. Yinglao Zhang
11. Eng King Tan
12. Yongcheng Wang
13. Yirong Wang
14. Wei Liu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The fundamental findings of this work substantially advance our understanding of the impact of the host on its gut microbes. The authors provided compelling evidence at single-cell resolution that the host can drive heterogeneity in the populations of gut microbes with significant consequences for the host physiology.

Reviewed by eLife

A modified BPaL regimen for tuberculosis treatment replaces linezolid with inhaled spectinamides

1. Malik Zohaib Ali
2. Taru S Dutt
3. Amy MacNeill
4. Amanda Walz
5. Camron Pearce
6. Ha Lam
7. Jamie S Philp
8. Johnathan Patterson
9. Marcela Henao-Tamayo
10. Richard Lee
11. Jiuyu Liu
12. Gregory T Robertson
13. Anthony J Hickey
14. Bernd Meibohm
15. Mercedes Gonzalez Juarrero

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this useful study, the authors report the efficacy, hematological effects, and inflammatory response of the BPaL regimen (containing bedaquiline, pretomanid, and linezolid) compared to a variation in which Linezolid is replaced with the preclinical development candidate spectinamide 1599, administered by inhalation in tuberculosis-infected mice. The authors provide convincing evidence that supports the replacement of Linezolid in the current standard of care for drug-resistant tuberculosis. The work will be of interest to those studying tuberculosis treatment regimens.

Reviewed by eLife

Merging multi-omics with proteome integral solubility alteration unveils antibiotic mode of action

1. Ritwik Maity
2. Xuepei Zhang
3. Francesca Romana Liberati
4. Chiara Scribani Rossi
5. Francesca Cutruzzolá
6. Serena Rinaldo
7. Massimiliano Gaetani
8. José Antonio Aínsa
9. Javier Sancho

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental study provides insights into how pathogens respond, on a systemic level including several gene targets and clusters, to selected antimicrobial molecules. Compelling evidence is provided, through multi-omics and functional approaches, that very similar molecules originally designed to target the same bacterial protein act differently within the context of the whole set of cellular transcripts, expressed proteins, and pre-lethal metabolic changes. Given the rapid accumulation of omics data and the much slower capacity of extracting biologically relevant insights from big data, this work exemplifies how the development of sensitive data analysis is still a major necessity in modern research.

Reviewed by eLife

Growth consequences of the inhomogeneous organization of the bacterial cytoplasm

1. Johan H van Heerden
2. Alicia Berkvens
3. Daan H de Groot
4. Frank J Bruggeman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study examines E. coli growth and division, suggesting that inhomogeneous organization of ribosomes in the cytoplasm results in cell size-dependent growth rate perturbations. The work is conceptually appealing, but incomplete due to shortcomings in the experiments and modeling.

Reviewed by eLife

Machine learning approaches identify immunologic signatures of total and intact HIV DNA during long-term antiretroviral therapy

1. Lesia Semenova
2. Yingfan Wang
3. Shane Falcinelli
4. Nancie Archin
5. Alicia D Cooper-Volkheimer
6. David M Margolis
7. Nilu Goonetilleke
8. David M Murdoch
9. Cynthia D Rudin
10. Edward P Browne

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Semenova et al. have studied a large cross-sectional cohort of people living with HIV on suppressive antiretroviral therapy and performed high dimensional flow-cytometry for analysis with data science/machine learning approaches to investigate associations of immunological and clinical parameters and intact/total HIV DNA levels (and categorizations). The study is useful in introducing these new methods and large data set and appears mostly solid, though some of the claims were incompletely supported by the modeling results. The authors have revised the text to fairly reflect their results, yet open questions remain about utility, particularly as to the value of categorical classification (vs continuous measurement) of reservoir size.

Reviewed by eLife

Competition and cooperation: The plasticity of bacteria interactions across environments

1. Josephine Solowiej-Wedderburn
2. Jennifer T. Pentz
3. Ludvig Lizana
4. Björn Schröder
5. Peter Lind
6. Eric Libby

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Secondary metabolite profiling of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates reveals rare genomic traits

1. Rachel L Neve
2. Emily Giedraitis
3. Madeline S Akbari
4. Shirli Cohen
5. Vanessa V. Phelan

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Functional genomics screens reveal a role for TBC1D24 and SV2B in antibody-dependent enhancement of dengue virus infection

1. Laura Belmont
2. Maya Contreras
3. Catiana H. Cartwright-Acar
4. Caleb D. Marceau
5. Aditi Agrawal
6. Lisa M. Levoir
7. Jay Lubow
8. Leslie Goo

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

Polysaccharides induce deep-sea Lentisphaerae strains to release chronic bacteriophages

1. Chong Wang
2. Rikuan Zheng
3. Tianhang Zhang
4. Chaomin Sun

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript presents valuable findings on two isolates of deep sea Lentisphaerae strains, which further our understanding of deep sea microbial life. The manuscript's primary claim is that phage isolates augment polysaccharide use in Pseudomonas bacteria, with preliminary evidence for the potential auxiliary metabolic genes in chronic phage infection and/or host proliferation. The strength of the evidence is overall solid and there are only minor weaknesses regarding the mechanism of polysaccharide use by the phages and the evidence for chronic infection. Overall, the data on Lentisphaerae strains will deepen our understanding of microbial life in the deep sea.

Reviewed by eLife

Antibacterial activity of tamoxifen derivatives against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

1. Irene Molina Panadero
2. Javier Falcón Torres
3. Karim Hmadcha
4. Salvatore Princiotto
5. Luigi Cutarella
6. Mattia Mori
7. Sabrina Dallavalle
8. Michael S. Christodoulou
9. Younes Smani

Reviewed by PREreview