Browse our latest Microbiology and Infectious Disease articles

A new class of plasma membrane proteins involved in heme-iron utilization provides a molecular link between the extracellular and intracellular parts of the fungal heme acquisition pathway, and reveals the evolutionary origin of this pathway.

A novel species-specific detection method could obtain pathogenic bacteria information in 4 hr with high clinical sensitivity and specificity, which guided the faster antibiotic treatment in ICU and brought some clinical benefit in a real-world scenario.

Sequencing of viral genomes could be useful for infection prevention and control within hospitals, but did not lead to a reduction in the rate of hospital-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections over winter 2020/2021 in a large multicentre UK study.

The combination of mosquito transgenesis with paratransgenesis provides maximum parasite-blocking activity and has high potential for fighting malaria.

As long suspected, poxviruses capture host genes through a reverse-transcription process now shown to be mediated by retrotransposons.

Active selfish genetic elements in infected cells aid virus adaptation by catalyzing the transfer of host genes to virus genomes.

A new experimental system of horizontal gene transfer demonstrates that host retrotransposons facilitate the transfer of host genes into poxviruses.

A horizontally shared type VI secretion system affects the interaction between vibrios and eukaryotic hosts.

The repair of oxidatively damaged proteins by the newly discovered activity in YjbI is important for the adaptation of Bacillus subtilis to oxidative environments.

Toll signaling modulates hemocyte differentiation into the megacyte lineage and their recruitment to the midgut greatly enhances mosquito immunity against Plasmodium.