A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...

Analysis of data from pre-implantation genetic testing sheds light on the genetic basis of meiotic-origin aneuploidy, the leading cause of human pregnancy loss, identifying common genetic variants ass...

Hemagglutinins (HA) from different influenza A virus subtypes share as little as ∼40% amino acid identity, yet their protein structure and cell entry function are highly conserved. Here we examine the extent that sequence constraints on HA differ across three subtypes. To do this, we first use pseudovirus deep mutational scanning to measure how all amino-acid mutations to an H7 HA affect its cell entry function. We then compare these new measurements to previously described measurements of how all mutations to H3 and H5 HAs affect cell entry function. We find that ∼50% of HA sites display substantially diverged preferences for different amino acids across the HA subtypes. The sites with the most divergent amino-acid preferences tend to be buried and have biochemically distinct wildtype amino acids in the different HA subtypes. We provide an example of how rewiring the interactions among contacting residues has dramatically shifted which amino acids are tolerated at specific sites. Overall, our results show how proteins with the same structure and function can become subject to very different site-specific evolutionary constraints as their sequences diverge. ### Competing Interest Statement JDB consults for Apriori Bio, Invivyd, Pfizer, GSK, and the Vaccine Company. JDB and BD are inventors on Fred Hutch licensed patents related to the deep mutational scanning of viral proteins. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, R01AI165821, 75N93021C00015 U.S. National Science Foundation, DGE-2140004 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, https://ror.org/006w34k90

A bacterial cell settles onto a nondescript surface. It is plump, healthy and functioning as it should. Nothing appears amiss.

EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General.

The 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Microbiome Editing will be held in Pomona, California. Apply today to reserve your spot.

The ability to discriminate thousands of odors in our environment requires each olfactory neuron to express a single olfactory receptor from hundreds of available genes. The biochemical mechanism enfo...

Analysis of hundreds of single-cell genomes from Yellowstone National Park shows bacterial species are less cohesive than previously thought.

Abstract. Despite an ever-expanding number of bacterial taxa being discovered, many of these taxa remain uncharacterized with unknown traits and environmen

A capacity to adapt is essential for a population to avoid extinction in a changing world and is recognised as a global conservation priority. Adaptation requires additive (heritable) genetic variatio...

About the Opportunity About the Opportunity: We invite applications from qualified candidates for a full-time Non-Tenure-Track (NTT) Assistant Teaching Professor faculty position within the Department...

Long-read sequence assemblies from metagenomes contain frequent errors.