04/25/2024
Research Article
The spread of viral genomes into adjacent cells and the plant vascular system is typically enabled by viral movement proteins. Xiaobao Ying, Sayanta Bera, Anne Simon and co-workers show that umbravirus-like RNA viruses can spread systemically without encoding any movement proteins, via the interaction of viral replication and capsid proteins with host protein PHLOEM PROTEIN 2.
Image credit: pbio.3002600
Current Issue March 2024
04/25/2024
Research Article
Plants secrete root exudates into the rhizosphere to attract beneficial microbes. Alba Pacheco-Moreno, Jacob Malone and colleagues show that barley genotype exerts multi-level selective pressure on the soil Pseudomonas population, affecting overall abundance, genotype and individual genetic features as well as expression of specific genes. Also read the accompanying Primer by Maggie Wagner.
Image credit: US National Arboretum via Wikimedia Commons
04/24/2024
Short Reports
YeeE is a bacterial membrane protein that mediates thiosulfate uptake, but whether it acts alone it is unclear. Mai Ikei, Ryoji Miyazaki, Muneyoshi Ichikawa, Tomoya Tsukazaki and co-authors identify YeeD as a necessary partner of YeeE, characterizing the cooperation of the two proteins (which is based on the thiosulfate ion decomposition activity of YeeD) at both structural and functional levels.
Image credit: pbio.3002601
04/23/2024
Research Article
Lysosomes are cellular degradation centers, critical for maintaining homeostasis. Selective modulation of lysosomal activity has remained a challenge to date, but Wenping Zeng, Canjun Li, Ge Shan, Lili Qu, Chunlei Cang and colleagues describe the development of lysosome-targeted optogenetic tools for the light-inducible manipulation of lysosomal physiology in cells and in C. elegans.
Image credit: pbio.3002591
04/23/2024
Research Article
Phage therapy is being explored to treat multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, but the possible direct effects of phages on the human host are less well understood. Paula Zamora, Jennifer Bomberger and co-workers show that therapeutic phages can be detected by epithelial cells of the human respiratory tract, eliciting proinflammatory responses that depend on specific phage properties and the airway microenvironment.
Image credit: pbio.3002566
04/22/2024
Research Article
Orb2, the Drosophila homolog of CPEB, forms prion-like oligomers that play a crucial role in the maintenance of long-term memory. Meghal Desai, Hemant, Tania Bose, Amitabha Majumdar and colleagues identify the Hsp40 family chaperone Mrj as a regulator of Orb2 oligomerization and its association with translating ribosomes.
Image credit: pbio.3002585
04/16/2024
Unsolved Mystery
This Unsolved Mystery article explores how genome reduction alters endosymbiont biology and highlights a ‘tipping point’ where the loss of the ability to build a cell envelope coincides with a marked erosion of translation-related genes.
Image credit: pbio.3002577
04/12/2024
Editorial
Thomas Richards and Nancy Moran discuss our new collection of articles exploring emerging themes in symbiosis research, as researchers exploit modern research tools and new models to unravel how symbiotic interactions function and evolve.
Image credit: Estelle Kilias
04/12/2024
Perspective
Rhizopus microsporus is a fungal holobiont, harboring bacterial and viral endosymbionts. Laila Partida-Martínez explores how these microbial allies increase pathogenicity and defense and control reproduction in the fungus.
Image credit: pbio.3002587
04/12/2024
Essay
Endosymbiosis is common and has played an important role in the evolution of complex life. Michael Brockhurst, Duncan Cameron and Andrew Beckerman explore the theory and experimental evidence for trade-offs in the early-stage evolution of endosymbiosis.
Image credit: pbio.3002580
Symbiosis research has become a holistic and pervasive field with a mature theoretical basis. This collection showcases symbiotic relationships across the tree of life, exploring their evolutionary basis and underlying mechanisms.
PLOS Biology is 20 and we are celebrating with a collection that contains articles that look back at landmark studies that we published, others that look past and future, and others discussing how publishing and open science have evolved and what is to come.
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This collection explores engineering strategies to help us adapt plants to a changing climate, including breeding techniques, genome engineering, synthetic biology and microbiome engineering.
The green collection explores biological solutions that could be applied to reduce CO2 emissions, get rid of non-degradable plastics, produce food in a sustainable manner or generate energy.
This collection explores potential solutions to mitigate the impacts of human activity on ocean ecosystems to minimize or reverse degradation.
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