Only a fraction of bacterial genomes encode CRISPR-Cas systems but the selective causes of this variation are unexplained. How naturally virulent bacteriophages (phages) select for CRISPR immunity has...

Nature Reviews Microbiology, Published online: 02 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s41579-025-01242-2Clostridioides difficile infection is challenging to diagnose and treat and is associated with considerable mortality, morbidity and economic costs worldwide. In this Review, Chilton et al. discuss changes in global epidemiology, breakthroughs in pathogenesis and antibiotic resistance, the role of microbiota dysbiosis and the potential for microbiota-based therapeutics for Clostridioides difficile infection.

Panoptes, an anti-phage defence system against virus-mediated immune suppression, is revealed.

Cells must coordinate DNA segregation with cytokinesis to ensure that each daughter cell inherits a complete genome. Here, we explore how DNA segregation and division are mechanistically coupled in ar...

Scientist and global activist Jane Goodall, who turned her childhood love of primates into a lifelong quest for protecting the environment, died on Wednesday at the age of 91, the institute she founded said.

Antibiotic resistance is frequently observed shortly after the clinical introduction of an antibiotic. Whether and how frequently that resistance occurred before the introduction is harder to determin...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

In this Consensus Statement, a consortium of microbiome scientists discuss current sequencing data sharing policies and propose the use of a Data Reuse Information (DRI) tag to promote equitable and collaborative data sharing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies Clostridioides difficile as an urgent threat to the nation’s health, as it causes 450,000 infections, 15,000 deaths, and 1 billion dollars in ...

Clostridioides difficile remains a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections, with its primary virulence factor, toxin B (TcdB), responsible fo...

Accumulating evidence has connected the chemically unstable, DNA-damaging gut bacterial natural product colibactin to colorectal cancer, including the identification of mutational signatures that are ...

Accurate detection of mutations within bacterial species is critical for fundamental studies of microbial evolution, reconstructing transmission events, and identifying antimicrobial resistance mutati...

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Clostridioides difficile infection is associated with the production of two large toxins, TcdA and TcdB. The toxins are encoded in a pathogenicity locus along with a phage-like holin protein, TcdE, th...

Phage engineering, the process of modifying bacteriophages to enhance or customize their properties, offers significant potential for advancing precision antimicrobial therapies and diagnostics. While...

Metagenomic investigation of archaeological dental calculus has provided insights into the changing oral health, disease, and diet of past human societies, but little is known about the oral microbiot...

The intestinal microbiota regulates multiple host functions, including digestion and immune development. Our knowledge of the microbiota has been shaped by available technology that primarily measures...

Proximity-ligation-based sequencing from 111 samples and 5 environments reveals that a substantial proportion of phages infect multiple species.