Nature Reviews Microbiology, Published online: 31 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41579-026-01350-7In this Review, Zhu and colleagues overview the major types of soil pollution in the Anthropocene and their effects on soil microbiome composition, function and dynamics, while also exploring microbiome-based strategies to manage and mitigate soil pollution and safeguard environmental, plant, animal and human health.

Antibiotic resistance can evolve through the combination of factors but the predictability of this is unclear. Here, the authors used high-throughput evolution experiments to reveal that antibiotic re...

Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is one of the most widely used plastics in food and textile applications, yet post-consumer PET waste persists and …

Mutational rates of bacterial evolution are increased using an error-prone orthogonal system.

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 27 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02264-zDisruption of a single gene encoding tryptophanase makes Escherichia coli mutualistic in a stinkbug model owing to the accumulation of tryptophan and a reduction in toxic indole. This gene is typically lacking in symbionts of wild stinkbugs.

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 27 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02261-2Testosterone produced by skin cells enhances Staphylococcus aureus pathogenicity by activating quorum sensing, and a stereoisomer of testosterone that blocks this interaction inhibits bacterial cytotoxicity towards human cells.

Duplicated self-interacting proteins can interact and interfere with each other’s function. Cisneros, Mattenberger, et al. show that selection against interfering loss-of-function alleles extends the ...

The extensive production, durability, and waste mismanagement of plastic polymers have led to a highly concerning environmental problem. Recycling met…

Extracellular contractile injection systems (eCISs) are bacteriophage tail-derived toxin delivery complexes that are present in many prokaryotes. Here, the authors present an analysis of eCIS tail fib...

EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General.

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the fourth most commonly used plastic worldwide. Like all plastics, post-consumer PET is poorly managed and accumulates in the environment, posing significant ecolo...

Five gene clusters have been introduced into a single rapidly growing bacterial strain.

Essential genes are traditionally considered indispensable for bacterial survival, but how they interact with other cellular processes is not well understood. Here, we deleted essential genes from div...

Abstract. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)-hydrolyzing enzymes (PETases) are a recently discovered enzyme class capable of plastic degradation. PETases are

Human gut bacteria bioaccumulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly known as forever chemicals, in intracellular aggregates. Colonization of gnotobiotic mice with bioaccumulating bac...

A massively parallel assay developed to map the essential photosynthetic enzyme rubisco showed that non-trivial biochemical changes and improvements in CO2 affinity are possible, signposting further e...

The structure of the early metabolic network is unknown. Here, we report that when considered together, pentose utilization pathways form all life-essential precursors. We speculate that the chemistry...