Microbiology

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

Chemostat culturing reduces fecal eukaryotic virus load and delays diarrhea after virome transplantation

1. Simone Margaard Offersen
2. Signe Adamberg
3. Malene Roed Spiegelhauer
4. Xiaotian Mao
5. Torben Sølbeck Rasmussen
6. Frej Larsen
7. Jingren Zhong
8. Duc Ninh Nguyen
9. Dennis Sandris Nielsen
10. Lise Aunsholt
11. Thomas Thymann
12. Kaarel Adamberg
13. Anders Brunse

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this valuable study, the authors report on an innovative chemostat propagation system to reduce eukaryotic viruses while retaining phages in mixtures used for FVTs (fecal virome transplant). The authors hypothesized that chemostat-propagated viromes could modulate the gut microbiota and reduce necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) lesions while avoiding potential side effects, such as earlier onset of diarrhea. The study is solid in that it integrates in vitro fermentation, high-resolution metagenomics, immunogenicity assays, and in vivo validation, demonstrating the potential of FVT using eukaryotic-free virome-based therapeutics. However, the study overall has some conceptual and technical limitations.

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

Nonequilibrium polysome dynamics promote chromosome segregation and its coupling to cell growth in Escherichia coli

1. Alexandros Papagiannakis
2. Qiwei Yu
3. Sander K Govers
4. Wei-Hsiang Lin
5. Ned S Wingreen
6. Christine Jacobs-Wagner

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study presents compelling observational data supporting a role for transcription and polysome accumulation in the separation of newly replicated bacterial chromosomes. Through a comprehensive and rigorous comparative analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamics of ribosomal accumulation, nucleoid segregation, and cell division, the authors develop a model that nucleoid segregation rates are determined at least in part by the accumulation of ribosomes in the center of the cell, exerting a steric force to drive nucleoid segregation prior to cell division. This model circumvents the need to invoke as yet unidentified active mechanisms (e.g. an equivalent to a eukaryotic spindle) as drivers of bacterial chromosome segregation and intrinsically couples this vital step in the cell cycle to cell growth.

Reviewed by eLife

Salmonella exploits host- and bacterial-derived β-alanine for replication inside host macrophages

1. Shuai Ma
2. Bin Yang
3. Yuyang Sun
4. Xinyue Wang
5. Houliang Guo
6. Ruiying Liu
7. Ting Ye
8. Chenbo Kang
9. Jingnan Chen
10. Lingyan Jiang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors use a multidisciplinary approach to provide a link between Beta-alanine and S. Typhimurium (STM) infection and virulence. This valuable work shows how Beta-alanine synthesis mediates zinc homeostasis regulation, possibly contributing to virulence. The work is convincing as it adds to the existing knowledge of metabolic flexibility displayed by STM during infection.

Reviewed by eLife

Stumpy forms are the predominant transmissible forms of Trypanosoma brucei

1. Jean Marc Tsagmo Ngoune
2. Parul Sharma
3. Aline Crouzols
4. Nathalie Petiot
5. Brice Rotureau

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  African (or Salivarian) trypanosomes are significant pathogens of humans and domestic animals. For many decades is was accepted that only the "stumpy" non-proliferative form was capable of infecting the Tsetse-fly vector, but recent work challenged this, suggesting that the proliferative "slender" form is also infective. The current paper provides important and convincing laboratory evidence that the original concept is probably correct for most infections: the slender form was not infective for adult Tsetse, and was only able to infect young, less immunocompetent flies if N-acetyl glucosamine was added to the feed.

Reviewed by eLife

A bacterial regulatory uORF senses multiple classes of ribosome-targeting antibiotics

1. Gabriele Baniulyte
2. Joseph T Wade

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this important study, Baniulyte and Wade provide convincing evidence that translation of a short ORF denoted toiL positioned upstream of the topAI-yjhQP operon is responsive to different ribosome-targeting antibiotics, consequently controlling translation of the TopAI toxin as well as Rho-dependent transcription termination. Strengths of the study include combining a genetic screen to identify 23S rRNA mutations that affect topA1 expression and a creative approach to map the different locations of ribosome stalling within toiL induced by different antibiotics, with ribosome profiling and RNA structure probing by SHAPE to examine consequences of different antibiotics on toiL-mediated regulation. The work leaves unanswered how bacteria benefit by activating expression of the genes using the proposed strategy and the mechanism underlying ToiL's sensing of structurally distinct antibiotics.

Reviewed by eLife

Vibrio cholerae lineage and pangenome diversity varies geographically across Bangladesh over one year

1. Chuhan Qin
2. Patrick Lypaczewski
3. Md. Abu Sayeed
4. Aline C. Cuénod
5. Lindsey Brinkley
6. Ashton Creasy-Marrazzo
7. Emilee T. Cato
8. Kamrul Islam
9. Md. Imam Ul Khabir
10. Md. Taufiqur R. Bhuiyan
11. Yasmin Begum
12. Firdausi Qadri
13. Ashraful I. Khan
14. Eric J. Nelson
15. B. Jesse Shapiro

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

The emergence of new lineages of the Mpox virus could affect the 2022 outbreak

1. Mayla Abrahim
2. Alexandro Guterres
3. Patrícia Cristina da Costa Neves
4. Ana Paula Dinis Ano Bom

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases