eLife is pleased to present a Special Issue to highlight recent advances in the mechanistic understanding of microbiome function.

Ancient features of the p53 regulatory network are coupled to the stem cell compartment in normal and pathologic contexts.

In wild baboons, a female's adverse early experiences can influence her offspring's survival years after the original adversity was experienced.

The discovery of non-canonical telomeric dsDNA-binding proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans reveal their contribution in the maintenance of telomere length and germline immortality.

Genetic knockout of the histone demethylase Kdm6a in the mouse germ line leads to elevated cancer incidence in genetically wild type offspring.

Fine mapping of transposable element presence/absence variation amongst 216 Arabidopsis strains uncovers widespread novel genetic diversity that underlies differences in transcription and DNA methylation patterns.

A novel paternal effect based on nicotine exposure reveals that offspring exhibit an adaptive, yet nonspecific, resistance to multiple toxins.

Worms with increased levels of the epigenetic mark H3K9me2 have a longer lifespan that can be passed down to future generations.

Fully assembled DNA methylomes from phylogeographically diverse clinical Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex isolates reveals 'intercellular mosaic methylation' as a source of epigenetic diversity.

Live-cell microscopy and genome-wide screens reveal how slow transitions in metabolism can underlie metabolic memory, providing a model for organisms demonstrating similar history-dependent behaviour and routes to improve industrial microbes.