Diverse E. coli phage genomes have hypermutable DNA regions that promote reversible frameshift mutations through DNA polymerase slippage, generating population heterogeneity that enables host exploita...

The federal government has unexpectedly ended two more research grants at the University of Pittsburgh, which in one case, upends 16 years of research...

Many bacteria, including the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, are chronically infected by viruses that can reproduce without killing the cell. These viruses, called filamentous phages, t...

Vibrio cholerae colonizes estuarine environments and human hosts, where it transitions between motile and sessile states using the second messenger cyclic di-GMP (cdG). cdG levels change in response to a variety of signals and are controlled by the activity of diguanylate cyclases and phosphodiesterase (PDEs), enzymes that make and degrade cdG. In this work, we show that Zn2+ and the cell density regulator HapR repress ZpdA, the PDE present in the Vibrio seventh pandemic 2 island, at the level of transcription, and that Zn2+ unexpectedly alters the PDE activity of ZpdA protein itself. Our study highlights the role of metal availability as an important signaling cue that controls V. cholerae biology.

ASM and fellow societies filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, calling for the swift restoration of NIH grant funding supporting early-career scientists, such as the MOSAIC program.