Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

The death of Craig Venter from a sudden cancer has generated several commentaries and obituaries in important scientific journals to honor the revolutionary innovations he brought to life sciences (1–...

Sun, Wu et al. identify AvaS as a pyridoxal-phosphate-dependent RNA-modifying enzyme, producing the tRNA modification ava2C from k2C in bacteria and plants and linking RNA chemistry to translational r...

Guns are more prevalent in academic spaces than ever before. Some policy makers have proposed that educators carry guns in schools as a means of se...

RNA degradation is linked to cellular metabolism, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, the authors show that the glycolytic metabolite fructose 1,6‑bisphosphate inhibits PNPas...

Abstract. Many bacteriophages encode anti-CRISPR (Acr) proteins that inhibit bacterial CRISPR–Cas immune systems. Rapid acr gene expression upon phage entr

A colibactin-producing symbiont in honeybee guts defends against opportunistic pathogens and confers protection.

Abstract. Escherichia coli is a prototroph and can synthesize all twenty proteinogenic amino acids when required to grow in minimal medium. There are appro

JCVI-syn3A, a model of minimal cellular life, relies on a cholesterol-rich membrane whose properties remain poorly understood. Here, authors show how cholesterol and sphingomyelin balance membrane ord...

Diffusion rate difference between MinD monomer and dimer is important for MinD protein gradient formation in B. subtilis, and not membrane affinity difference.

Flagella are large transenvelope nanomachines but how they transit the peptidoglycan in gram-positive bacteria is poorly understood. A recent model...

An RNA polymerase identified in the genome of Pseudomonas phage Njord offers a promising tool for the synthesis of mRNA and other therapeutic nucle...

Kinderärztin, Forscherin, Leopoldina-Preisträgerin: Laura Hinze gibt Krebspatienten Hoffnung - und arbeitet 70 Stunden die Woche.

Sensing environmental cues and transmembrane signal transduction via membrane-embedded proteins is a process of key importance in all living cells. To investigate the molecular mechanisms involved, we...

Bacillus subtilis Ncp and NADH dehydrogenase form tube-like filaments with phospholipid-lined chambers that associate with quinones, which can expand bioenergetic capacity and support respiratory elec...

Researchers identified a c-di-AMP receptor that reversibly controls gene expression and host cell adhesion in Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, revealing how this bacterial signal molecule regulates inte...

Pathogenicity—the ability to cause infectious disease—is widespread among bacteria and eukaryotes but conspicuously absent from archaea, the third domain of life. To understand why archaea are non-pat...

Diadenosine tetraphosphate (Ap4A) and related dinucleoside tetraphosphates (Ap4Ns) are important stress-signalling molecules that coordinate bacterial…

Many bacterial immune defenses transmit recognition of phage infection via the generation of diverse cyclic nucleotide second messengers. Phage have evolved to subvert this kind of immunity by sequest...

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...

Author summary Biological novelty is directly influenced by gene length, which is linked to the function of the encoded protein, gene expression level, and the risk of accumulating mutations. Hence, g...

Bacterial nanotubes are widespread intercellular membranous bridges mediating molecular exchange among neighboring cells, yet their formation and dynamics remain largely unexplored. By combining live-...

Many important biological functions arise not from single genes but from complex interactions encoded by entire genomes. We report the first generative design of complete bacteriophage genomes using g...

Iron is a vital element of biofilm-associated pathogenicity because it fuels core metabolic functions, including respiration, DNA synthesis, and redox reactions that support microbial growth and stres...

Genetic mapping methods that link phenotypes with causal genetic variants have been difficult to apply in bacteria since they require intraspecific recombination. Here, Vasileva et al. construct a pan...

Bacillus thuringiensis is a remarkably efficient entomopathogen due to its ability to produce various insecticidal proteins, such as Cry or Vip. This property has made it a highly effective biopestici...

Cell-cell signaling using a core metabolite repurposed as a developmental cue coordinates bacterial multicellular development.

Systematic analysis of prokaryotic STAND NTPases — relatives of animal and plant immune receptors — uncovers diverse antiviral sensors that detect most of the core structural and replic...

Many medications not typically prescribed to treat infectious diseases have potent antimicrobial activity at physiological concentrations. This anti-bacterial activity raises concern that long-term administration of such nonantibiotics might unintentionally select for multidrug resistance, including resistance to antibiotics. Using Escherichia coli, we show that in most cases, these nonantibiotics do not broadly select for resistance to antibiotics in vitro. However, we identified five nonantibiotics that repeatedly selected for resistance to multiple antibiotics through a shared mechanism of action—upregulation of the multidrug efflux pump AcrAB-TolC. These findings highlight that while the overall risk is low, certain nonantibiotics may still contribute to the emergence of multidrug resistance. Identifying these high-risk drugs can help guide safer prescribing practices and inform strategies to limit the spread of antibiotic resistance.

Bacteria are continuously exposed to diverse environmental changes and stresses. They are especially susceptible to such stimuli and therefore rely on efficient regulatory systems to sense and adapt r...

Children with cystic fibrosis (CF) commonly harbor Staphylococcus aureus thymidine-dependent small-colony variants (TD-SCVs), which are associated with reduced lung function and increased respiratory ...

Black et al. identify the L. pneumophila effector SidL as an adenylyltransferase that targets host glycolysis. SidL covalently modifies the glycolytic intermediate 3-phosphoglycerate (3PG) with AMP, g...

The emergence and spread of multi-resistant bacteria are a major problem for humans and animals. Therefore, the identification of novel targets for the development of novel antibiotics to combat patho...

Nishimoto et al. experimentally evolve bacteria during infection, revealing a ribosomal “crash and reboot” strategy as a mechanism of antibiotic tolerance. Mutations in the RNA degradosome allow RNA t...

During starvation, progressive Spo0A~P accumulation is decoded by three Spo0A~P-binding sites and intrinsic DNA bending within the kinA promoter. Together, these features fine-tune kinA transcription...

Researchers identified a c-di-AMP receptor that reversibly controls gene expression and host cell adhesion in Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, revealing how this bacterial signal molecule regulates inte...

The inability of industrial microbes to co-utilize glucose and xylose severely limits lignocellulosic biomass valorization in bioproduction. Here, we combined pathway separation and adaptive laborator...

Identification of CprV during bacterial sporulation reveals insight into how developing cells monitor compartmental integrity during cellular remodelling and differentiation.