Regulation of extracellular vesicles for protein secretion in Aspergillus nidulans
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.
Transcriptomic response to different heme sources in Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigotes
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.
Luminal acetylation of microtubules is not essential for Plasmodium berghei and Toxoplasma gondii survival
Acetylation of α-tubulin at lysine 40 is not essential for cytoskeletal stability in Plasmodium berghei or Toxoplasma gondii, suggesting redundancy and plasticity in microtubule regulation in these parasites.
The dual-site agonist for human M2 muscarinic receptors Iper-8-naphtalimide induces mitochondrial dysfunction in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
S. cerevisiae is a model to study human GPCRs. N-8-Iper, active against glioblastoma via M2 receptor, causes mitochondrial damage in yeast by binding Ste2, highlighting evolutionary conservation of GPCRs.
Integrative Omics reveals changes in the cellular landscape of peroxisome-deficient pex3 yeast cells
To uncover the consequences of peroxisome deficiency, we compared Saccharomyces cerevisiae wild-type with pex3 cells, which lack peroxisomes, employing quantitative proteomics and transcriptomics technologies.
Regulation of extracellular vesicles for protein secretion in Aspergillus nidulans
Pope et al.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.
Transcriptomic response to different heme sources in Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigotes
Tevere et al.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.
Sir2 regulates selective autophagy in stationary-phase yeast cells
Ryu et al.This study establishes Sir2 as a previously unrecognized regulator of selective autophagy during the stationary phase and highlight how cells dynamically control organelle degradation.
GFP fusions of Sec-routed extracellular proteins in Staphylococcus aureus reveal surface-associated coagulase in biofilms
We show that msfGFP can be used to generate extracellular fluorescent fusion proteins in S. aureus, applicable for proteins that are secreted through the Sec pathway. When fused to coagulase, msfGFP did not hinder the biological function, and the fusion protein localised to the fibrin pseudocapsule surrounding clusters of S. aureus cells.
Atg1, a key regulator of autophagy, functions to promote MAPK activation and cell death upon calcium overload in fission yeast
Here, we provide evidence that the fission yeast Atg1 regulates cell death responses upon intracellular calcium load in addition to its role in promoting Pmk1 MAPK.
TL-532, a novel specific Toll-like receptor 3 agonist rationally designed for targeting cancers: discovery process and biological characterization
In the present study, we identified a new family of TLR3 agonists that activates myeloid cells, triggers the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines in both myeloid and cancer cells, and induces apoptosis specifically in cancer cells.
Acetate modulates the inhibitory effect of Lactobacillus gasseri against the pathogenic yeasts Candida albicans and Candida glabrata
The results herein described advance the design of new anti-Candida therapies based on probiotics, in particular, those based on vaginal lactobacilli species, helping to reduce the significant burden that infections caused by Candida have today in human health.
Hallam et al.
D-Serine reduces the expression of the cytopathic genotoxin colibactin
Sensing and responding to environmental cues and signalling molecules is crucial for bacterial survival. In this study we have identified a D-amino acid that has a strong regulatory effect on the pks genomic island which encodes for biosynthesis genes for the genotoxic compound colibactin.
A modular cloning (MoClo) toolkit for reliable intracellular protein targeting in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae
In this study, we describe an advanced Molecular cloning toolkit that is designed for the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and optimized for the targeting of proteins of interest to specific cellular compartments.
The first taxonomic and functional characterization of human CAVD-associated microbiota
Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is the most common heart valve disorder, defined by a remodeling multistep process. In this study, we aimed to investigate and characterize the presence of valvular microbiota and the associated immune response in human CAV samples originating from two European populations.
Ondari et al.
Cellular cholesterol licenses Legionella pneumophila intracellular replication in macrophages
Host membranes are inherently critical for niche homeostasis of vacuolar pathogens such as Legionella. One membrane component that is often subverted by vacuolar bacteria is cholesterol. We provide experimental evidence that cellular cholesterol promotes L. pneumophila replication within a membrane bound organelle in infected macrophages.
An unexpected benefit from E. coli: how enterobactin benefits host health
Sewell et al.In this article, the authors comment on the study “Microbial Siderophore Enterobactin Promotes Mitochondrial Iron Uptake and Development of the Host via Interaction with ATP Synthase” by Qi et al. (Cell, 2018) that uncovered a surprising role for the Escherichia coli-produced siderophore enterobactin (Ent) in facilitating iron uptake by the host, marking a major shift in the understanding of its function and indicating potential new benefits from commensal bacteria in aiding the host’s iron homeostasis.
Protective roles of ginseng against bacterial infection
Kim and YangThis review highlights the antibacterial effects of ginseng against pathogenic bacterial infections, discussing its regulation of pathogenic factors and proposing the therapeutic potential of ginseng as a natural antibacterial drug to address antibiotic resistance and toxicity in the context of global public health challenges.
A Cinderella story: how the vacuolar proteases Pep4 and Prb1 do more than cleaning up the cell’s mass degradation processes
Kerstens and Van DijckThis review summarizes the expanded roles of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae vacuolar proteases Pep4 and Prb1 in non-vacuolar activities outside of autophagy, such as programmed cell death, protection from harmful protein forms, and gene expression regulation. The potential implications of these findings for fungal biology and drug target discovery, including insights for mammalian cell studies, are highlighted, emphasizing the need for a deeper understanding of these molecular processes.
The biosynthesis of pyoverdines
Ringel and BrüserThis review provides an overview of pyoverdine biosynthesis, emphasizing the distinctive fluorophore shared by various pyoverdines derived from ferribactins and the role of periplasmic processes in the maturation and modification of these siderophores, critical for the growth and colonization of hosts by fluorescent pseudomonads.
Toxin release mediated by the novel autolysin Cwp19 in Clostridium difficile
El Meouche and Peltier.In this article, the authors comment on the study “Cwp19 is a novel lytic transglycosylase involved in stationary-phase autolysis resulting in toxin release in Clostridium difficile” by Wydau-Dematteis (MBio, 2018) that characterizes a novel peptidoglycan hydrolase, Cwp19, in Clostridioides difficile, highlighting its glucose-dependent mediation of toxins secretion and suggesting a potential role in the pathogenesis of this bacterium, contributing to the understanding of these enzymes in C. difficile and their implication in pathogenicity.
A global view of substrate phosphorylation and dephosphorylation during budding yeast mitotic exit
Touati and UhlmannIn this article, the authors comment on the study “Phosphoproteome dynamics during mitotic exit in budding yeast” by Touati (EMBO J, 2018) that described a time-resolved global phosphoproteome analysis during a cell cycle phase known as mitotic exit in budding yeast revealed the principles of phosphoregulation governing the ordered sequence of events such as spindle elongation, chromosome decondensation, and completion of cell division.
Gammaretroviruses tether to mitotic chromatin by directly binding nucleosomal histone proteins
Wanaguru and BishopIn this article, the authors comment on the study “Murine leukemia virus p12 tethers the capsid-containing pre-integration complex to chromatin by binding directly to host nucleosomes in mitosis” by Wanaguruet al. (PLoS Pathog, 2018) that highlights the essential role of the gammaretroviral gag cleavage product, p12, at both early and late stages of the virus life cycle, particularly in the integration of the viral DNA into the host cell chromatin to form a provirus. It also emphasizes the recent findings regarding the N- and C-terminal domains of p12, revealing their direct binding to the viral capsid lattice and nucleosomal histone proteins, respectively, thus elucidating the mechanism by which p12 links the viral pre-integration complex to mitotic chromatin.
Patterns of protein synthesis in the budding yeast cell cycle: variable or constant?
No et al.Proteins are the principal macromolecular constituent of proliferating cells, and protein synthesis is viewed as a primary metric of cell growth. While there are celebrated examples of proteins whose levels are periodic in the cell cycle (e.g., cyclins), the concentration of most proteins was not thought to change in the cell cycle, but some recent results challenge this notion. The ‘bulk’ protein is the focus of this article, specifically the rate of its synthesis, in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Ribose 5-phosphate: the key metabolite bridging the metabolisms of nucleotides and amino acids during stringent response in Escherichia coli?
Grucela et al.Here we propose the metabolite ribose 5’-phosphate as the key link between nucleotide and amino acid metabolisms and a working model integrating both the transcriptional and metabolic effects of (p)ppGpp on E. coli physiological adaptation during the stringent response.
Flagellated bacterial porter for in situ tumor vaccine
Xu et al.Cancer immunotherapy, which use the own immune system to attack tumors, are increasingly popular treatments. But, due to the tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment, the antigen presentation in the tumor is limited. Recently, a growing number of people use bacteria to stimulate the body’s immunity for tumor treatment due to bacteria themselves have a variety of elements that activate Toll-like receptors. Here, we discuss the use of motility of flagellate bacteria to transport antigens to the tumor periphery to activate peritumoral dendritic cells to enhance the effect of in situ tumor vaccines.
The rise of Candida auris: from unique traits to co-infection potential
Egger et al.Candida auris is a multidrug resistant (MDR) fungal pathogen with a crude mortality rate of 30-60%. First identified in 2009, C. auris has been rapidly rising to become a global risk in clinical settings and was declared an urgent health threat by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A concerted global action is thus needed to successfully tackle the challenges created by this emerging fungal pathogen. In this brief article, we underline the importance of unique virulence traits, including its easy transformation, its persistence outside the host and its resilience against multiple cellular stresses, as well as of environmental factors that have mainly contributed to the rise of this superbug.
A hundred spotlights on microbiology: how microorganisms shape our lives
Carmona-Gutierrez et al.Viral, bacterial, fungal and protozoal biology is of cardinal importance for the evolutionary history of life, ecology, biotechnology and infectious diseases. Various microbiological model systems have fundamentally contributed to the understanding of molecular and cellular processes, including the cell cycle, cell death, mitochondrial biogenesis, vesicular fusion and autophagy, among many others. Microbial interactions within the environment have profound effects on many fields of biology, from ecological diversity to the highly complex and multifaceted impact of the microbiome on human health. Also, biotechnological innovation and corresponding industrial operations strongly depend on microbial engineering. With this wide range of impact in mind, the peer-reviewed (…)
Yeast goes viral: probing SARS-CoV-2 biology using S. cerevisiae
Ho et al.The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has long been an outstanding platform for understanding the biology of eukaryotic cells. Robust genetics, cell biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry complement deep and detailed genome annotation, a multitude of genome-scale strain collections for functional genomics, and substantial gene conservation with Metazoa to comprise a powerful model for modern biological research. Recently, the yeast model has demonstrated its utility in a perhaps unexpected area, that of eukaryotic virology. Here we discuss three innovative applications of the yeast model system to reveal functions and investigate variants of proteins encoded by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Murals meet microbes: at the crossroads of microbiology and cultural heritage
Bauer et al.This article comments on the duality of microorganisms in the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage, which encompasses the negative impact of damaging microorganisms and recent advances in using specific microorganisms and microbial-based technologies for cultural heritage preservation.
Urm1, not quite a ubiquitin-like modifier?
Kaduhr et al.This article comments on work published by Brachmann et al. (Redox Biol, 2020), which studied urmylation of the yeast 2-Cys peroxiredoxin Ahp1, uncovering that promiscuous lysine target sites and specific redox requirements determine the Urm1 acceptor activity of the peroxiredoxin.
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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.
It takes four to tango: the cooperative adventure of scientific publishing
Carmona-Gutierrez et al.This Editorial is the 500th article published in Microbial Cell, a journey that started in 2014 and has seen the journal grow steadily and maintain itself as a respected community platform. The foundation that has allowed for and driven this development – as for any responsible journal – is composed of four essential pillars: the readers, the authors, the editors and the referees.