Microbiology

The phenotypic landscape of the mycobacterial cell

1. Nadia Herrera
2. Horia Todor
3. Lili M. Kim
4. Hannah N. Burkhart
5. Evan Billings
6. Allison Fay
7. Theodore C. Warner
8. So Young Lee
9. Natalie Y. Sayegh
10. Barbara Bosch
11. James Chen
12. Laura L. Kiessling
13. Michael S. Glickman
14. Filippo Mancia
15. Jeremy M. Rock
16. Carol A. Gross

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

Ligand binding represses bacterial histidine kinase activity by inhibiting its dimerization

1. Gaurav D. Sankhe
2. Jiawei Xing
3. Merissa Xiao
4. John Buglino
5. Huilin Li
6. Igor B. Zhulin
7. Michael S. Glickman

Reviewed by Review Commons

Evaluation of antibiotic and peptide vaccine strategies for mirror bacterial infections

1. Alexander Kleinman
2. Joe Torres
3. Brian Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study experimentally probes potential antibiotic activity against hypothetical "mirror bacteria" with reversed chirality, showing that D-enantiomers of several approved antibiotics largely lack activity against natural bacteria (as a proxy for mirror organisms) and that conjugated D-peptides can elicit strong binding antibody responses in mice when adjuvanted. The evidence is solid for these core observations but incomplete on issues of chiral purity, functional antibody assays, replicates, and pharmacodynamic readouts; the work also overreaches in extrapolations without deeper mechanistic integration or native-format validation. Overall, the work offers a cautious, relevant contribution to mirror microbiology discussions and will interest infectious disease researchers.

Reviewed by eLife

Role of zinc in growth, stress response and virulence gene expression of pathogenic Mucorale Rhizopus arrhizus

1. Rachna Singh
2. Anjna Kumari
3. Pavneet Kaur
4. Jasdeep Kaur

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

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. Although no effect on NEC could be demonstrated, the revised document addressed the other concerns and is much improved from its original version. The study is convincing 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.

Reviewed by eLife

Fine-tuning of outer membrane–peptidoglycan tethering by the redox-active lipoprotein LppB from Salmonella enterica

1. Elisa S Pierre Despas
2. Seung-Hyun Cho
3. Bogdan I Iorga
4. Jean-François Collet

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study convincingly demonstrates how bacterial cells can modulate outer membrane-peptidoglycan tethering by expressing two different Lpp homologs with distinct cross-linking efficiencies, revealing that Salmonella typhimurium LppB forms disulfide-based homodimers (or heterotrimers with Lpp when present) and is covalently attached to peptidoglycan primarily via the L,D-transpeptidase LdtB at residue K58. The evidence supporting the authors' claims is solid, including the regulatory role of LppB dimerization for its abundance in E. coli and its ability to inhibit Lpp/A crosslinking to peptidoglycan, although additional analysis and quantification of muropeptides in wild-type E. coli overexpressing LppB would further strengthen the findings. Overall, the work will be of great interest to microbiologists studying cell envelope biogenesis.

Reviewed by eLife