Archaea kill bacteria, at least on occasion. The molecular underpinnings of these lethal interactions are barely understood. Here, we describe cinquedea, an α/β hydrolase secreted by the halophilic ar...

Nature Reviews Microbiology, Published online: 27 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41579-026-01310-1Two back-to-back studies by Gallego-del-Sol et al. and Manley et al. demonstrate that arbitrium systems present in bacteriophages engage in cross-communication and modulate lysis–lysogeny decisions, with ecological implications.

Inactivation of chromosomal genes through plasmid-encoded IS elements is an extended mechanism of antimicrobial resistance evolution in bacteria.

Bacterial resistance to the vital last-resort antibiotic colistin is an increasing challenge. This study shows that magnesium sequestration by C. albicans enables P. aeruginosa to evolve much higher l...

Nature Reviews Microbiology, Published online: 12 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41579-026-01287-xThis Genome Watch article explores how protein language models are transforming phage–host specificity prediction by capturing meaningful biological information from viral sequences, from individual proteins to entire genomes.

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...

Microorganisms commonly exist in polymicrobial communities, where they can respond to interspecies secreted molecules by altering behaviors and phy...

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 16 January 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-025-02239-6A 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.

The permeability of bacterial porins is dynamically regulated by periplasmic proton and potassium concentrations, altering antibiotic resistance.

Peer-review practices of psychological journals: The fate of published articles, submitted again - Volume 5 Issue 2

Phages rely on diverse anti-defense proteins to neutralize bacterial defense systems and successfully infect their host.

imageimageSeveral systems, such as the Mla and Pqi pathways, mediate lipid transport between the two membranes of gram-negative bacteria. This study identifies a novel Mla-Pqi chimeric complex in Bruc...

Outer membrane attachment to peptidoglycan enables periplasmic pressure to build up and counter cytoplasmic turgor pressure, preventing lysis during osmotic challenges in Escherichia coli.

Captions are available in many other languages: Please press the settings button (gear icon) for more options. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of most ...

Brogan et al. uncover a signalling pathway in which levels of the nucleotide second messenger c-di-AMP increase in response to defects in cell wall synthesis. This regulatory pathway decreases turgor ...

Klebsiella host strains infected with telomere phages can grow to be the dominant lineage in mixed populations.

This work challenges a major assumption in cell biology by showing that lipid bilayers can have drastically different phospholipid abundances between their two leaflets. This lipid abundance asymmetry...

How one bacteria befriended an old foe to take down a thriving competitor