25 July 2022

The immunomodulatory potential of phage therapy to treat acne: a review on bacterial lysis and immunomodulation

"Farfán and colleagues access the state of the field for utilizing phage therapy in acne, evaluating how bacteriophages have an immunomodulatory impact on inflammatory diseases."

Joseph Gillespie, Handling Editor

15 July 2022

Structural and functional characteristics of soil microbial community in a Pinus massoniana forest at different elevations

"The work is important as it tries to address the topographical impact on the structural and functional characteristics of the soil microbial community. Understanding the impact of the physical environment on the biology of organisms shall be helpful in managing the ecosystems in a better and more efficient way."

Gowhar Meraj, Handling Editor

13 July 2022

Insights into mobile genetic elements and the role of conjugative plasmid in transferring aminoglycoside resistance in extensively drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii AB329

"A. baumannii is the most worrisome antibiotic resistant bacteria and it is fundamental to understand the mechanisms that lead to its high antibiotic resistance levels."

Rodolfo García-Contreras, Handling Editor

8 July 2022

Optimizing human coronavirus OC43 growth and titration

"SARS-CoV-2 is an important human pathogen but presents difficulties for experimental biologists because of the required containment/safety levels. HCoV-OC43 is a good surrogate but has been difficult to grow in sufficient quantities in the lab. This paper reports conditions to address this and wlil be of wide general interest."

Gwyn Gould, Handling Editor

7 June 2022

Genomic insights into Lactobacillus gasseri and Lactobacillus paragasseri

"The use of comparative genomics using a larger dataset has added new knowledge to previous analyses as well as reiterating once again that species may end up being reclassified based on new information"

Siouxsie Wiles, Handling Editor

5 May 2022

Unbalanced relationships: insights into the interaction between gut microbiota, geohelminths, and schistosomiasis

"This literature review provides a current analysis of parasite-host-microbiota interactions concerning main geohelminths and Schistosoma, a topic of interest that is not yet fully understood."

Erika Braga, Handling Editor

13 April 2022

Identifying and characterizing Stagonosporopsis cucurbitacearum causing spot blight on Pinellia ternata in China

"All the knowledge gather on plant pathogens is relevant in a warming world where crops are in danger. This manuscript presents the relevance of the first incidence of S. cucurbitacearum as a plant pathogen, providing more tools to counteract the global treat that plant pathogens are."

Bernardo Franco, Handling Editor

29 March 2022

Faecal DNA metabarcoding reveals novel bacterial community patterns of critically endangered Southern River Terrapin, Batagur affinis

"All research conducted to understand the microbiome of wild species is crucial for adding up to our understanding of the human microbiome. Also, the presented data is essential for assessing the health status of wild species and can be used for conservation strategies."

Bernardo Franco, Handling Editor

24 March 2022

Benchmarking metagenomics classifiers on ancient viral DNA: a simulation study

"Cárdenas and colleagues perform a comprehensive analysis of different programs for taxonomic classification of sequencing reads for ancient viral DNA, developing optimal metagenomics classifiers that are much needed for these difficult to analyze data."

Joseph Gillespie, Handling Editor

15 March 2022

Freeze-drying can replace cold-chains for transport and storage of fecal microbiome samples

"A focused and insightful study on fecal sample handling that can be of use to many scientists."

Konstantinos Kormas, Handling Editor