The ability to share resources for the benefit of all members of a group may have driven ancient organisms to evolve from a unicellular to a multicellular state.

A simple model reveals the roles of colony geometry and diffusion rate in allowing microbes to cooperate by sharing public goods.

Natural sugars are preferred over artificial sweeteners because of their nutritional content, which is sensed by MCH neurons in the lateral hypothalamus.

Metabolite analysis of plasma from enteric fever patients define signals of organism specific host–pathogen interactions and provides opportunities for new diagnostics.

The correct enzymatic activity of a previously misnamed enzyme is defined, placing the enzyme upstream of LARGE in building functional O-mannose structures on α-dystroglycan that are disrupted in multiple forms of congenital muscular dystrophy.

Post-phosphoryl modification of α-dystroglycan requires the glucuronyltransferase B4GAT1; this enzyme synthesizes the acceptor glycan that serves as a primer for the glycosyltransferase LARGE to synthesize the laminin-binding glycan.

A multi-layered and conserved cell cycle mechanism prevents capsulation, long known as a bacterial virulence determinant, in G1-phase and concurrently licenses bacteriophage-mediated genetic exchange prior to entry into S-phase.

A single mutation in Escherichia coli connects two essential cell envelope assembly pathways and confers vancomycin resistance by displaying molecular decoys at the cell surface.

Parallel pathways of xylose metabolism identified in fungi that grow on plants can be used in yeast to promote hemicellulose conversion to biofuels.

Cholera intoxication of human colonic epithelial cells is dependent on recognition of protein glycosylation and fucosylation, not exclusively on ganglioside recognition as proposed previously.