, 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.

, 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.

, December 17, 2025
Luminal acetylation of microtubules is not essential for <i>Plasmodium berghei</i> and <i>Toxoplasma gondii</i> survival

Luminal acetylation of microtubules is not essential for Plasmodium berghei and Toxoplasma gondii survival

Thrishla Kumar1,a, Katharina Röver2,a, Johannes F. Stortz3,a, Annika M. Binder2,a, Benjamin Spreng2, Madlen Konert2, Markus Meissner1, Friedrich Frischknecht2,4 and Elena Jimenez-Ruiz1,*

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.

, December 12, 2025
The dual-site agonist for human M2 muscarinic receptors Iper-8-naphtalimide induces mitochondrial dysfunction in <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i>

The dual-site agonist for human M2 muscarinic receptors Iper-8-naphtalimide induces mitochondrial dysfunction in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Angela Cirigliano1,a, Antonia Amelina2,a, Elena Passarini2, Alessandra Ricelli1, Nicole Balasco1, Mattia Mori3, Bruno Botta4, Maria Egle De Stefano2,5, Claudio Papotto6, Claudia Guerriero2, Ada Maria Tata2,5 and Teresa Rinaldi2,*

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.

, October 31, 2025

The core genetic drivers of chronological aging in yeast are universal regulators of longevity

Erika Cruz-Bonilla1, Sergio E. Campos2, Soledad Funes3, Cei Abreu-Goodger4 and Alexander DeLuna1,2,*

This study provides an integrated view of the core genetic landscape underlying aging in yeast, highlighting the value of the chronological lifespan paradigm for investigating conserved mechanisms of aging.

, September 12, 2025

Organelle activity organized by the endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria encounter structure –ERMES– is essential for Podospora anserina development

Melisa Álvarez-Sánchez1, Matías Ramírez-Noguez1, Beatriz Aguirre-López1 and Leonardo Peraza-Reyes1

Eucaryotic cell functioning and development depend on the concerted activity of its organelles. In the model fungus Podospora anserina, sexual development involves a dynamic regulation of mitochondria, peroxisomes and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), suggesting that their activity during this process is coordinated.

, August 12, 2025

Role of the putative sit1 gene in normal germination of spores and virulence of the Mucor lusitanicus

Bernadett Vágó1,2, Kitti Bauer1,2, Naomi Varghese1,2, Sándor Kiss-Vetráb1,2, Sándor Kocsubé1,2, Mónika Varga1,2, András Szekeres1,2, Csaba Vágvölgyi1,2, Tamás Papp1,2,3,# and Gábor Nagy1,2,3,#

Mucormycosis is a life-threatening infection caused by certain members of the fungal order Mucorales, with increased incidence in recent years. Individuals with untreated diabetes mellitus, and patients treated with deferoxamine are particularly susceptible to this infection.

, August 11, 2025

Tumor microenvironment signatures enhances lung adenocarcinoma prognosis prediction: Implication of intratumoral microbiota

Fei Zhao1,#, Lei Wang2,3,4,#, Dongjie Du5, Heaven Zhao6,7, Geng Tian6,7, Yufeng Li2,3,8, Yankun Liu2,8,9, Zhiwu Wang2,3,10, Dasheng Liu11, Jingwu Li2,3,12, Lei Ji6,7 and Hong Zhao1

The interaction between intratumoral microbiome and the tumor microenvironment (TME) has furthered our understanding of tumor ecology. Yet, the implications of their interaction for lung cancer management remain unclear.

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, January 18, 2016

Location, location, location. Salmonella senses ethanolamine to gauge distinct host environments and coordinate gene expression

Christopher J. Anderson and Melissa M. Kendall

This article comments on work published by Anderson and Kendell (PLoS Pathog, 2015), which demonstrates that Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (Salmonella) exploits ethanolamine signaling to adapt to distinct host environments to precisely coordinate expression of genes encoding metabolism and virulence.

, December 31, 2015

Biofilm assembly becomes crystal clear – filamentous bacteriophage organize the Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm matrix into a liquid crystal

Patrick R. Secor1, Laura K. Jennings1, Lia A. Michaels1, Johanna M. Sweere2, Pradeep K. Singh1, William C. Parks3, Paul L. Bollyky2

This article comments on work published by Secor et al. (Host Cell & Microbe, 2015), which highlights a previously unknown role for filamentous Pf phage in organizing the P. aeruginosa biofilm matrix into a liquid crystalline structure. These findings help ground our understanding of biofilm formation within established paradigms of soft matter physics

, December 31, 2015

Histone modifications as regulators of life and death in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Birthe Fahrenkrog

The mechanism by which chromosomes restructure during apoptosis is still poorly understood, but it is becoming increasingly clear that altered epigenetic histone modifications are fundamental parameters that influence the chromatin state and the nuclear rearrangements within apoptotic cells. This review highlights recent work on the epigenetic regulation of programmed cell death in budding yeast.

, December 25, 2015

Spermidine cures yeast of prions

Shaun H. Speldewinde, and Chris M. Grant

This article comments on work published by Speldewinde and Grant (Mol Biol Cell, 2015), which found that spermidine, a polyamine that has been used to increase autophagic flux, acts as a protective agent which prevents spontaneous prion formation in yeast.

November 4, 2015

Histone deacetylases: revealing the molecular base of dimorphism in pathogenic fungi

Alberto Elías-Villalobos1,2, Dominique Helmlinger2 and José I. Ibeas1

Fungi, as every living organism, interact with the external world and have to adapt to its fluctuations. For pathogenic fungi, such interaction involves adapting to the hostile environment of their host. Survival depends on the capacity of fungi to detect and respond to external stimuli, which is achieved through a tight and efficient genetic control. Elías-Villalobos et al. propose that histone acetylation is critical to the proper timing and induction of transcription of the genes encoding factors that coordinate changes in morphology with pathogenesis.

October 12, 2015

Electron microscopy for ultrastructural analysis and protein localization in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Andri Frankl, Muriel Mari and Fulvio Reggiori

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a key model system for studying of a multitude of cellular processes because of its amenability to genetics, molecular biology and biochemical procedures. The goal of this review is to guide researchers that want to investigate a particular process at the ultrastructural level in yeast by aiding in the selection of the most appropriate approach to visualize a specific structure or subcellular compartment.

October 12, 2015

Complex regulation of the sirtuin-dependent reversible lysine acetylation system of Salmonella enterica

Kristy L. Hentchel1,2 and Jorge C. Escalante-Semerena1

The extensive involvement of the reversible lysine acylation (RLA) system in metabolism has attracted the attention of investigators interested in understanding the fundamentals of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell function. Here the authors discuss the implications of recently reported work performed in the enteropathogen Salmonella enterica (mBio (2015) 6(4):e00891-15), which provided the first insights into the integration of the transcriptional regulation of genes encoding the RLA system with the acs gene encoding the central metabolic enzyme acetyl-CoA synthetase (Acs).

September 23, 2015

A bacterial volatile signal for biofilm formation

Yun Chen2, Kevin Gozzi1, and Yunrong Chai1

Bacteria constantly monitor the environment they reside in and respond to potential changes in the environment through a variety of signal sensing and transduction mechanisms in a timely fashion. In their recent study (Chen, et al. mBio (2015), 6: e00392-15), the authors demonstrated that the soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis uses acetic acid as a volatile signal to coordinate the timing of biofilm formation within physically separated cells in the community. They also showed that the bacterium possesses an intertwined gene network to produce, secrete, sense, and respond to acetic acid, in stimulating biofilm formation.

September 23, 2015

The great escape: Pseudomonas breaks out of the lung

Angelica Zhang1, Stephanie M. Rangel1, and Alan R. Hauser1,2

The Gram-negative bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections and the focus of much attention due to its resistance to many conventional antibiotics. This article discusses the potential mechanisms by which these processes occur as well as the novel techniques used to study ExoS function in vivo.

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, August 1, 2016

Similar environments but diverse fates: Responses of budding yeast to nutrient deprivation.

Saul M. Honigberg

Diploid budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) can adopt one of several alternative differentiation fates in response to nutrient limitation, and each of these fates provides distinct biological functions. When different strain backgrounds are taken into account, these various fates occur in response to similar environmental cues, are regulated by the same signal transduction pathways, and share many of the same master regulators. I propose that the relationships between fate choice, environmental cues and signaling pathways are not Boolean, but involve graded levels of signals, pathway activation and master-regulator activity.

, May 1, 2016

Phosphatidylthreonine: An exclusive phospholipid regulating calcium homeostasis and virulence in a parasitic protist

Ruben D. Arroyo-Olarte and Nishith Gupta

This article comments on work published by Kuchipudi et al. (Microbial Cell, 2016), which describes the role of phohsphatidylthreonine in the regulation of calcium homeostasis and virulence in the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii.

, April 13, 2016

Non-genetic impact factors on chronological lifespan and stress resistance of baker’s yeast

Michael Sauer and Diethard Mattanovich

This article comments on work published by Bisschops et al. (Microbial Cell, 2015), which illustrates how important the choice of the experimental setup is and how culture conditions influcence cellular aging and survival in biotechnological processes.

, April 4, 2016

What’s old is new again: yeast mutant screens in the era of pooled segregant analysis by genome sequencing

Chris Curtin and Toni Cordente

This article comments on work published by Den Abt et al. (Microbial Cell, 2016), which identified genes involved in ethyl acetate formation in a yeast mutant screen based on a new approach combining repeated rounds of chemical mutagenesis and pooled segregant analysis by whole genome sequencing.

, March 17, 2016

The complexities of bacterial-fungal interactions in the mammalian gastrointestinal tract

Eduardo Lopez-Medina1 and Andrew Y. Koh2

This article comments on work published by Lopez-Medina et al. (PLoS Pathog, 2015) and Fan et al. (Nat Med, 2015), which utilize an “artificial” niche, the antibiotic-treated gut with concomitant pathogenic microbe expansion, to gain insight in bacterial-fungal interactions in clinically common scenarios.

, March 6, 2016

Gearing up for survival – HSP-containing granules accumulate in quiescent cells and promote survival

Ruofan Yu and Weiwei Dang

This article comments on work published by Lee et al. (Microbial Cell, 2016), which reports that distinct granules are formed in quiescent and non-quiescent cells, which determines their respective cell fates.

, March 3, 2016

Yeast screening platform identifies FDA-approved drugs that reduce Aβ oligomerization

Triana Amen1,2 and Daniel Kaganovich1

This article comments on work published by Park et al. (Microbial Cell, 2016), which discovered a number of small molecules capable of modulating Aβ aggregation in a yeast model.

November 26, 2015

Groupthink: chromosomal clustering during transcriptional memory

Kevin A. Morano

In this article, the authors comment on the study “NO1 transcriptional memory leads to DNA zip code-dependent interchromosomal clustering.” by Brickner et al. (Microbial Cell, 2015), discussing the importance and molecular mechanisms of chromosomal clustering during transcriptional memory.

November 26, 2015

Yeast proteinopathy models: a robust tool for deciphering the basis of neurodegeneration

Amit Shrestha1, 2 and Lynn A. Megeney1, 2, 3

Protein quality control or proteostasis is an essential determinant of basic cell health and aging. Eukaryotic cells have evolved a number of proteostatic mechanisms to ensure that proteins retain functional conformation, or are rapidly degraded when proteins misfold or self-aggregate. This article discusses the use of budding yeast as a robust proxy to study the intersection between proteostasis and neurodegenerative disease.

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.

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