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Research Article | Clinical Science and EpidemiologyGut Microbiota Predict Enterococcus Expansion but Not Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus AcquisitionThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that VRE causes an estimated 54,000 infections and 539 million dollars in attributable health care costs annually. Despite improvements in hand washing, environmental cleaning, and antibiotic use, VRE is still prevalent in many hospitals. There is a pressing need to better understand the processes by which patients acquire VRE. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that intestinal...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyAssessment of In Vitro and In Silico Protocols for Sequence-Based Characterization of the Human Vaginal MicrobiomeThe vaginal microbiome has been connected to various aspects of host health, including susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections as well as gynecological cancers and pregnancy outcomes. This has led to a thriving research environment but also to conflicting available methodologies, including many studies that do not report their molecular biological and bioinformatic methods in sufficient detail to be considered reproducible....
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyThe Putative APSES Transcription Factor RgdA Governs Growth, Development, Toxigenesis, and Virulence in Aspergillus fumigatusImmunocompromised patients are susceptible to infections with the opportunistic human-pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus. This fungus causes systemic infections such as invasive aspergillosis (IA), which is one of the most life-threatening fungal diseases. To control this serious disease, it is critical to identify new antifungal drug targets. In fungi, the...
Observation | Ecological and Evolutionary ScienceProphage-Dependent Neighbor Predation Fosters Horizontal Gene Transfer by Natural TransformationProphages are nearly ubiquitous in bacterial species. These integrated phage elements have previously been implicated in horizontal gene transfer (HGT) largely through their ability to carry out transduction (generalized or specialized). Here, we show that prophage-encoded viral particles promote neighbor predation leading to enhanced HGT by natural transformation in the waterborne pathogen...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyGenome-Wide CRISPR-Cas9 Screen Reveals the Importance of the Heparan Sulfate Pathway and the Conserved Oligomeric Golgi Complex for Synthetic Double-Stranded RNA Uptake and Sindbis Virus InfectionWhen facing a viral infection, the organism has to put in place a number of defense mechanisms in order to clear the pathogen from the cell. At the early phase of this preparation for fighting against the invader, the innate immune response is triggered by the sensing of danger signals. Among those molecular cues, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is a very potent inducer of different reactions at the cellular level that can ultimately lead...
Research Article | Clinical Science and EpidemiologyDaily Viral Kinetics and Innate and Adaptive Immune Response Assessment in COVID-19: a Case SeriesThis work is particularly important because it simultaneously assessed the virology, immunology, and clinical presentation of the same subjects, whereas other studies assess these separately. We describe the detailed viral and immune profiles of the first five patients infected by SARS-CoV-2 and quarantined in Geneva, Switzerland. Viral loads peaked at the very beginning of the disease, and infectious virus was shed only during the...
Research Article | Clinical Science and EpidemiologyA Genome Epidemiological Study of SARS-CoV-2 Introduction into JapanThis study aimed to evaluate the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) genome sequences from COVID-19 cases and to characterize their genealogical networks to demonstrate possible routes of spread in Japan. We found that there were at least two distinct SARS-CoV-2 introductions into Japan, initially from China and subsequently from other countries, including Europe. Our findings can help understand how SARS-CoV-2...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyThe Lumen of Human Intestinal Organoids Poses Greater Stress to Bacteria Compared to the Germ-Free Mouse Intestine: Escherichia coli Deficient in RpoS as a Colonization ProbeTechnological advancements have driven and will continue to drive the adoption of organotypic systems for investigating host-microbe interactions within the human intestinal ecosystem. Using E. coli deficient in the RpoS-mediated general stress response, we demonstrate that the type or severity of microbial stressors within the HIO lumen is more restrictive than those...
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyRole of LmeA, a Mycobacterial Periplasmic Protein, in Maintaining the Mannosyltransferase MptA and Its Product Lipomannan under StressMycobacteria differentially regulate the cellular amounts of lipoglycans in response to environmental changes, but the molecular mechanisms of this regulation remain unknown. Here, we demonstrate that cellular lipoarabinomannan (LAM) levels rapidly decline under two stress conditions, stationary growth phase and nutrient starvation, while the levels of another related lipoglycan, lipomannan (LM), stay relatively constant. The...
Author Reply | Clinical Science and EpidemiologyReply to Bourgeois et al., “Incompletely Reported Important Methodological Details and Inaccurate Description of the Formulation That the Control Arms Received in a Gardasil Vaccine Trial”