Nature Reviews Microbiology, Published online: 02 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41579-026-01376-xBacteria deploy diverse immune systems to counter phage infection, yet how these systems sense invasion remains incompletely understood. This Review categorizes phage-derived triggers and outlines emerging principles that govern immune recognition of phage infection.

Cyclic oligonucleotide–based antiphage signaling systems (CBASS) are bacterial immune pathways evolutionarily related to cGAS-STING (cyclic GMP-AMP synthase–stimulator of interferon genes) in humans. ...

De novo protein design has advanced rapidly, yet designing binders to polar, solvent-exposed epitopes and small, flexible ligands remains challenging. Such hydrated surfaces and flexible molecules, in...

During replisome assembly of monkeypox virus, the hexameric helicase–primase E5 undergoes large-scale conformational changes that allow two of its primase domains to interact with the polymerase F8 th...

Recent discoveries on bacterial immunity have revealed that several protein domains involved in anti-phage defense are conserved in eukaryotes, such as SIRim, TIR, PNP and gasdermin. Bacterial immune ...

Nature Reviews Microbiology, Published online: 27 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41579-026-01352-5In this Review, Iredell and colleagues examine key aspects of phage biology and their relevance to phage therapy, and outline current approaches for clinical application of phages, along with their associated challenges.

Inside cells, DNA is intimately associated with proteins, forming chromatin. The protein constituents of chromatin vary across the tree of life: histones are the principal building blocks of chromatin...

Neuroinflammation is a major secondary driver of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In this issue of Cell Chemical Biology, Carnevale et al. demonstrate that S-nitrosylation of the cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS) stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway sustains pathological neuroinflammation in AD, identifying a promising therapeutic target for this devastating disease.

The Review describes shared ancient, conserved mechanisms between human antiviral immunity and bacterial anti-phage systems, outlining universal principles of pathogen sensing, signalling and effector...

Bacterial diadenylate cyclase (DAC) enzymes synthesize the nucleotide signal 3′3′ cyclic di-AMP (3′3′-c-di-AMP) to control osmoregulation, cell-wall homeostasis, and DNA-damage responses. Here we disc...

Bacterial reverse transcriptases defend against viruses, yet how their DNA products stop infection remains unknown. Bacteriophage inhibition of a host recombination enzyme activates the DRT3 defense s...

A nanopore-based ‘chop and measure’ method sequences peptides at single-amino-acid resolution by using enzymatic digestion to progressively shorten the N terminus one residue at a time,...

All organisms defend against viral infections through active immunity mechanisms that clear the virus or population-level mechanisms that cause regulated cell death. Recent research increasingly shows...

Bacteria produce natural products to adapt to their environments, with phage interactions as major ecological and evolutionary drivers. While some nat…

Predicting gene function is a pivotal and challenging step in genomic and metagenomic data analysis. Current automatic annotation tools typically rely on the single most similar sequence from the quer...

Defense-associated reverse transcriptases (DRTs) employ DNA synthesis to protect bacteria against phage infection[1][1],[2][2]. We previously showed that DRT10, a tripartite system comprising an RT, a...

Phages often degrade the genome of their bacterial host to individual nucleotides. Here we describe Metis, a bacterial defense system that directly senses phage-mediated host genome degradation. Metis...

cGAS-like receptors (cGLRs) are an important family of nucleic acid-sensing pattern recognition receptors in innate immunity, which produce cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) to activate STING signaling and ...

A large-scale, comparative cell biology and biochemical screen defines the molecular features controlling antiphage defence systems that encode nuclease effectors and accessory NTPase proteins.

Tak et al. discover that bacteria use 2′,3′-cGAMP, the same signaling molecule employed by mammalian cGAS-STING, for phage defense. In response to phage, 2′,3′-cGAMP activates filament formation of Ca...

Peptides are sequenced by converting each amino acid into amplifiable DNA barcodes.

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 09 March 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8This study highlights that Schlafens are ancient, mechanistically conserved immune effectors that mediate antiviral immunity in organisms ranging from humans to bacteria.

Protein structure is conserved beyond sequence, making multiple structural alignment (MSTA) essential for analyzing distantly related proteins. Computational prediction methods have vastly extended ou...

A library of 400 phage protein-coding genes is used to find a trove of antiphage systems, revealing systems that target tail fibre and major capsid proteins.

In this review, Vaysset and Bernheim examine how nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a key player in diverse and widespread bacterial antiphage defense systems and phage counterdefense. The au...

The Panoptes antiphage system defends bacteria by detecting phage-encoded counter-defences that sequester cyclic nucleotide signals, triggering membrane disruption and highlighting a broader strategy of sensing immune evasion through second-messenger surveillance.

Hailong, an anti-phage defence system, synthesizes an oligodeoxyadenylate signal that blocks effector activity in the absence of phage infection but is degraded by phage-encoded DNA exonucleases, lead...

Modification of the nucleotide pool is emerging as key to innate immunity in animals, plants and bacteria. This Review explains how immune pathways conserved from bacteria to humans manipulate the nuc...