, January 28, 2026
Regulation of extracellular vesicles for protein secretion in <i>Aspergillus nidulans</i>

Regulation of extracellular vesicles for protein secretion in Aspergillus nidulans

Rebekkah E. Pope1, Patrick Ballmann2, Lisa Whitworth3 and Rolf A. Prade1,*

This study reveals that Aspergillus nidulans boosts extracellular vesicle production when ER-trafficked enzymes are induced, uncovering how fungi remodel their secretome through vesicle-mediated secretion to adapt to changing environments and biofilm formation.

January 23, 2026
Transcriptomic response to different heme sources in <i>Trypanosoma cruzi</i> epimastigotes

Transcriptomic response to different heme sources in Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigotes

Evelyn Tevere1,a, María G. Mediavilla1,a, Cecilia B. Di Capua1, Marcelo L. Merli1, Carlos Robello2,3, Luisa Berná2,4 and Julia A. Cricco

This study uncovers how the Chagas disease parasite adapts to changes in heme, an essential molecule for its survival, providing transcriptional clues to heme metabolism and identifying a previously unreported heme-binding protein in T. cruzi.

, January 21, 2026

Sir2 regulates selective autophagy in stationary-phase yeast cells

Ji-In Ryua, Juhye Junga, and Jeong-Yoon Kim

This study establishes Sir2 as a previously unrecognized regulator of selective autophagy during the stationary phase and highlight how cells dynamically control organelle degradation.

, March 3, 2014

Protein oxidation in the intermembrane space of mitochondria is substrate-specific rather than general

Valentina Peleh1, Jan Riemer2, Andrew Dancis3 and Johannes M. Herrmann1

In this work, the authors suggest that in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the Mia40-dependent oxidation of proteins in the intermembrane space only takes place in specific proteins and presumably relies on the presence of Mia40-binding sites.

, January 15, 2014

Deletion of AIF1 but not of YCA1/MCA1 protects Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida albicans cells from caspofungin-induced programmed cell death

Christopher Chin1,2,#, Faith Donaghey1,#, Katherine Helming1,3,#, Morgan McCarthy1,#, Stephen Rogers1, and Nicanor Austriaco1

This work suggests that deleting AIF1 but not YCA1/MCA1 protects S. cerevisiae and Candida albicans from caspofungin-induced cell death. This is not only the first time that AIF1 has been specifically tied to cell death in Candida but also the first time that caspofungin resistance has been linked to the cell death machinery in yeast.

, January 5, 2014

Reduced TORC1 signaling abolishes mitochondrial dysfunctions and shortened chronological lifespan of Isc1p-deficient cells

Vitor Teixeira1,2, Tânia C. Medeiros1, Rita Vilaça1,2, Pedro Moradas-Ferreira1,2, and Vítor Costa1,2

Overall, this article shows that the TORC1-Sch9p axis is deregulated in Isc1p-deficient Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells, contributing to mitochondrial dysfunction, enhanced oxidative stress sensitivity and premature aging of isc1Δ cells.

, January 4, 2014

Early manifestations of replicative aging in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Maksim I. Sorokin1,3, Dmitry A. Knorre2,3, and Fedor F. Severin2,3

The data preseted herein suggest that retrograde signaling starts to malfunction in relatively young cells, leading to accumulation of heterogeneous mitochondria within one cell. The latter may further contribute to a decline in stress resistances.

, December 26, 2013

Tracking autophagy during proliferation and differentiation of Trypanosoma brucei

William R. Proto1, Nathaniel G. Jones1, Graham H. Coombs2, and Jeremy C. Mottram1

This article provides insights into the function of autophagy, a cellular degradation and recycling pathway, in the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei.

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, March 31, 2016

When and where? Pathogenic Escherichia coli differentially sense host D-serine using a universal transporter system to monitor their environment

James P. R. Connolly and Andrew J. Roe

This article comments on work published by Connolly et al. (PLoS Pathog, 2016), which describes the discovery of a functional and previously uncharacterized D-serine uptake system in E. coli.

, March 27, 2016

Signaling pathways and posttranslational modifications of tau in Alzheimer’s disease: the humanization of yeast cells

Jürgen J. Heinisch1 and Roland Brandt2

In the past decade, yeast have been frequently employed to study the molecular mechanisms of human neurodegenerative diseases, generally by means of heterologous expression of genes encoding the relevant hallmark proteins. Substantial posttranslational modifications of many of these proteins are required for the development and progression of potentially disease relevant changes. We give an overview on common modifications as they occur in tau during AD and discuss potential approaches to humanize yeast in order to create modification patterns resembling the situation in mammalian cells.

, March 16, 2016

The bacterial cell cycle checkpoint protein Obg and its role in programmed cell death

Liselot Dewachter1, Natalie Verstraeten1, Maarten Fauvart1,2 and Jan Michiels1

This article comments on work published by Dewachter et al. (mBio, 2015), which identified a programmed cell death mechanism in Escherichia coli that is triggered by a mutant isoform of the essential GTPase ObgE.

, March 9, 2016

Bactericidal antibiotics induce programmed metabolic toxicity

Aislinn D. Rowan, Damien J. Cabral and Peter Belenky

This article comments on work published by Lobritz et al. (PNAS, 2015), which demonstrates that bactericidal antibiotics induce metabolic perturbations that are linked to and required for bactericidal antibiotic toxicity.

, March 9, 2016

Control of the gut microbiome by fecal microRNA

Shirong Liu and Howard L. Weiner

This article comments on work published by Liu et al. (Cell Host & Microbe, 2016), which identifies miRNAs in gut lumen and feces of both mice and humans that were able to enter bacteria, specifically regulate bacterial gene transcripts and affect bacterial growth thereby regulating the gut microbiome.

, February 23, 2016

Mitochondrial regulation of cell death: a phylogenetically conserved control

Lorenzo Galluzzi1,2,3,4,5, Oliver Kepp1,2,3,4,6 and Guido Kroemer1,2,3,4,6,7,8

Mitochondria are fundamental for eukaryotic cells as they participate in critical catabolic and anabolic pathways. Moreover, mitochondria play a key role in the signal transduction cascades that precipitate many (but not all) regulated variants of cellular demise. In this short review, the authors discuss the differential implication of mitochondria in the major forms of regulated cell death.

, February 22, 2016

Mek1/Mre4 is a master regulator of meiotic recombination in budding yeast

Nancy M. Hollingsworth

This article comments on work published by Chen et al. (PLoS BIol, 2015), showing that the meiosis specific kinase Mek1 indirectly regulates the crossover/non-crossover decision between homologs as well as genetic interference and suggests Mek1 to be a “master regulator” of meiotic recombination in budding yeast.

, February 19, 2016

Shaping meiotic chromosomes with SUMO: a feedback loop controls the assembly of the synaptonemal complex in budding yeast

Hideo Tsubouchi1, Bilge Argunhan1 and Tomomi Tsubouchi2

This article comments on work published by Leung et al. (J Cell Biol, 2015), which shows that the formation of the meiosis-specific synaptonemal complex is controlled through SUMOylation of a regulator required for the assembly of transverse filaments, implicating the involvement of a positive feedback loop in the control of synaptonemal complex assembly.

, January 18, 2016

Learning epigenetic regulation from mycobacteria

Sanjeev Khosla1, Garima Sharma1,2 and Imtiyaz Yaseen1,2

This article comments on work published by Koshla et al. (Nat Commun, 2015), which shows that pathogenic Mycobacterium tuberculosis has evolved strategies to hijack the epigenetic regulation of host transcripton for its own survival.

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, March 17, 2017

Staphylococcus aureus type I signal peptidase: essential or not essential, that’s the question

Wouter L.W. Hazenbos1, Elizabeth Skippington2 and Man-Wah Tan1

This article comments on work published by Morisaki et al. (mBio, 2016), which characterized a novel ABC transporter. This transporter apparently compensates for SpsB’s essential function by mediating alternative cleavage of a subset of proteins at a site distinct from the SpsB-cleavage site, leading to SpsB-independent secretion.

, March 1, 2017

Transceptors as a functional link of transporters and receptors

George Diallinas

A relative newcomer in environment sensing are the so called transceptors, membrane proteins that possess both solute transport and receptor-like signaling activities. Now, the transceptor concept is further enlarged to include micronutrient sensing via the iron and zinc high-affinity transporters of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

, February 3, 2017

S. pombe placed on the prion map

Jacqueline Hayles

This article comments on work published by Sideri et al. (Microbial Cell, 2017), which identified the Ctr4 prion in S. pombe.

December 30, 2016

Using microbes as a key tool to unravel the mechanism of autophagy and the functions of the ATG proteins

Mario Mauthe1,2 and Fulvio Reggiori1,2

Microbes have served to discover and characterize unconventional functions of the ATG proteins, which are uncoupled from their role in autophagy. In our recent study, we have taken advantage of viruses as a screening tool to determine the extent of the unconventional functions of the ATG proteome and characterize one of them.

, December 5, 2016

Autophagy: one more Nobel Prize for yeast

Andreas Zimmermann1, Katharina Kainz1, Aleksandra Andryushkova1, Sebastian Hofer1, Frank Madeo1,2 and Didac Carmona-Gutierrez1

The recent announcement of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumifor the discoveries of mechanisms governing autophagy, underscores the importance of intracellular degradation and recycling. Here we provide a quick historical overview that mirrors both the importance of autophagy as a conserved and essential process for cellular life and death as well as the crucial role of yeast in its mechanistic characterization.

, November 25, 2016

Physiology, phylogeny, and LUCA

William F. Martin1,2, Madeline C. Weiss1, Sinje Neukirchen3, Shijulal Nelson-Sathi4, Filipa L. Sousa3

Genomes record their own history. But if we want to look all the way back to life’s beginnings some 4 billion years ago, the record of microbial evolution that is preserved in prokaryotic genomes is not easy to read. The classical approach has been to look for genes that are universally distributed. Another approach is to make all trees for all genes, and sift out the trees where signals have been overwritten by lateral gene transfer. What is left ought to be ancient. If we do that, what do we find?

, September 30, 2016

The curious case of vanishing mitochondria

Anna Karnkowska1 and Vladimír Hampl2

Due to their involvement in the energy metabolism, mitochondria are essential for most eukaryotic cells. Microbial eukaryotes living in low oxygen environments possess reduced forms of mitochondria, namely mitochondrion-related organelles (MROs). Recently, the first microbial eukaryote with neither mitochondrion nor MRO was characterized – Monocercomonoides sp. The discovery of such bona fide amitochondriate eukaryote broadens our knowledge about the diversity and plasticity of eukaryotic cells and provides a substantial contribution to our understanding of eukaryotic cell evolution.

, September 23, 2016

Accumulation of metabolic side products might favor the production of ethanol in Pho13 knockout strains

Guido T. Bommer, Francesca Baldin & Emile Van Schaftingen

This article comments on work published by Collard et al. (Nat Chem Biol, 2016), which describes the discovery of a striking example illustrating the metabolite repair concept.

, September 4, 2016

Sexually transmitted infections: old foes on the rise

Didac Carmona-Gutierrez1,*, Katharina Kainz1 and Frank Madeo1,2,*

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are commonly spread via sexual contact. It is estimated that one million STIs are acquired every day worldwide. Besides their impact on sexual, reproductive and neonatal health, they can cause disastrous and life-threatening complications if left untreated. In addition to this personal burden, STIs also represent a socioeconomic problem, deriving in treatment costs of tremendous proportions. Despite a substantial progress in diagnosis, treatment and prevention, the incidence of many common STIs is increasing, and STIs continue to represent a global public health problem and a major cause for morbidity and mortality. With this Special Issue, Microbial Cell provides an in-depth overview of the eight major STIs, covering all relevant features of each infection.

Microbial Cell

is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes exceptionally relevant research works that implement the use of unicellular organisms (and multicellular microorganisms) to understand cellular responses to internal and external stimuli and/or human diseases.

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Whether you’re preparing a manuscript, reviewing a paper, or just exploring the journal, this FAQ answers the essentials—from scope and founders to impact and how to submit. Prefer a tailored path? Pick For authors or For reviewers below.

Peer-reviewed, open-access research using unicellular organisms (and multicellular microorganisms) to understand cellular responses and human disease.

The journal (founded in 2014) is led by its Editors-in-Chief Frank Madeo, Didac Carmona-Gutierrez, and Guido Kroemer

Microbial Cell has been publishing original scientific literature since 2014, and from the very beginning has been managed by active scientists through an independent Publishing House (Shared science Publishers). The journal was conceived as a platform to acknowledge the importance of unicellular organisms, both as model systems as well as in the biological context of human health and disease.

Ever since, Microbial Cell has very positively developed and strongly grown into a respected journal in the unicellular research community and even beyond. This scientific impact is reflected in the yearly number of citations obtained by articles published in Microbial Cell, as recorded by the Web of Science (Clarivate, formerly Thomson/Reuters):

The scientific impact of Microbial Cell is also mirrored in a series of milestones:

2015: Microbial Cell is included in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), a selection of developing journals drafted by Clarivate Analytics based on the candidate’s publishing standards, quality, editorial content, and citation data. Note: As an ESCI-selected journal, Microbial Cell is currently being evaluated in a rigorous and long process to determine an inclusion in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), which allows the official calculation of Clarivate Analytics’ impact factor.

2016: Microbial Cell is awarded the so-called DOAJ Seal by the selective Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The DOAJ Seal is an exclusive mark of certification for open access journals granted by DOAJ to journals that adhere to outstanding best practice and achieve an extra high and clear commitment to open access and high publishing standards.

2017: Microbial Cell is included in Pubmed Central (PMC), allowing the archiving of all the journal’s articles in PMC and PubMed.

2019: Microbial Cell is indexed in the prestigious abstract and citation database Scopus after a thorough selection process. This also means that Microbial Cell obtains, for the first time, an official Scopus CiteScore as well as an official journal ranking in the Scimago Journal and Country Ranking.

2022: Microbial Cell’s CiteScore reaches a value of 7.2 for the year 2021, positioning Microbial Cell among the top microbiology journals (previously available CiteScores: 2019: 5.4; 2020: 5.1).

2022: Microbial Cell is indexed in the highly selective Science Citation Index Expanded™, which covers approx. 9,500 of the world’s most impactful journals across 178 scientific disciplines. In their journal selection and curation process, Clarivate´s editors apply 24 ‘quality’ criteria and four ‘impact’ criteria to select the most influential journals in their respective fields. This selection is also a pre-requisite for inclusion in the JCR, which features the impact factor.

2022: Microbial Cell is listed in the Journal Citation Reports™ (JCR), and obtains its first official Journal Impact Factor™ (JIF) for the year 2021: 5.316.

Check Article Types and Manuscript Preparation guidelines. Submit online via Scholastica.