Microbiology

Prophages express a type IV pilus component to provide anti-phage defence

1. Kristina M. Sztanko
2. P. Nathael Javorčík
3. Alexa D. Fitzpatrick
4. Tatiana Lenskaia
5. Karen L. Maxwell
6. Alan R. Davidson

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Design of a new model yeast consortium for ecological studies of enological fermentation

1. Eléonore Pourcelot
2. Audrey Vigna
3. Thérèse Marlin
4. Virginie Galeote
5. Thibault Nidelet

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Neutralizing gut-derived lipopolysaccharide as a novel therapeutic strategy for severe leptospirosis

1. Xufeng Xie
2. Xi Chen
3. Shilei Zhang
4. Jiuxi Liu
5. Wenlong Zhang
6. Yongguo Cao

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The gut microbiota influences many infectious diseases; however, its role Leptospirosis remains unclear. In this fundamental work, Xie et al. use a hamster model to show that Leptospira infection leads to gut pathology, an altered gut microbiota, and increased translocation. A combined use of antibiotics and LPS neutralization prolonged survival, providing a potential new therapeutic approach. This study utilizes compelling methods to provide new insights into this emerging disease, which could be dissected further in future studies aimed at gaining mechanistic insight and assessing the translational relevance of these discoveries.

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

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

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

1. Gabriel Innocenti
2. Maureen Obara
3. Bibiana Costa
4. Henning Jacobsen
5. Maeva Katzmarzyk
6. Luka Cicin-Sain
7. Ulrich Kalinke
8. Marco Galardini

Reviewed by Review Commons

Mycobacterium tuberculosis PhoP integrates stress response to intracellular survival by regulating cAMP level

1. Hina Khan
2. Partha Paul
3. Harsh Goar
4. Bhanwar Bamniya
5. Navin Baid
6. Dibyendu Sarkar

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study describes how PhoP regulates cyclic-AMP production in the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The authors provide convincing evidence that PhoP acts as a repressor of the cyclic-AMP-specific phosphodiesterase, Rv0805, which can degrade cyclic-AMP. The revised manuscript has addressed all outstanding comments and the work will be of interest to bacteriologists.

Reviewed by eLife