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Minireview | Host-Microbe BiologyDefensive Properties of Mucin Glycoproteins during Respiratory Infections—Relevance for SARS-CoV-2Mucus plays a pivotal role in protecting the respiratory tract against microbial infections. It acts as a primary contact site to entrap microbes and facilitates their removal from the respiratory tract via the coordinated beating of motile cilia. The major components of airway mucus are heavily O-glycosylated mucin glycoproteins, divided into gel-forming mucins and transmembrane mucins. The gel-forming mucins MUC5AC and MUC5B...
Minireview | Therapeutics and PreventionAntimicrobial Peptides: a New Frontier in Antifungal TherapyInvasive fungal infections in humans are generally associated with high mortality, making the choice of antifungal drug crucial for the outcome of the patient. The limited spectrum of antifungals available and the development of drug resistance represent the main concerns for the current antifungal treatments, requiring alternative strategies. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), expressed in several organisms and used as first-line defenses...
Minireview | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyBacterial Cell Wall Quality Control during Environmental StressNearly all bacteria are encased in a peptidoglycan cell wall, an essential polysaccharide structure that protects the cell from osmotic rupture and reinforces cell shape. The integrity of this protective barrier must be maintained across the diversity of environmental conditions wherein bacteria replicate. However, at the cell surface, the cell wall and its synthesis machinery face unique challenges that threaten their integrity....
Minireview | Host-Microbe BiologyMolecular Mimicry: a Paradigm of Host-Microbe Coevolution Illustrated by LegionellaThrough coevolution with host cells, microorganisms have acquired mechanisms to avoid the detection by the host surveillance system and to use the cell’s supplies to establish themselves. Indeed, certain pathogens have evolved proteins that imitate specific eukaryotic cell proteins, allowing them to manipulate host pathways, a phenomenon termed molecular mimicry. Bacterial “eukaryotic-like proteins” are a remarkable example of molecular...
Minireview | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyFun(gi)omics: Advanced and Diverse Technologies to Explore Emerging Fungal Pathogens and Define Mechanisms of Antifungal ResistanceThe landscape of infectious fungal agents includes previously unidentified or rare pathogens with the potential to cause unprecedented casualties in biodiversity, food security, and human health. The influences of human activity, including the crisis of climate change, along with globalized transport, are underlying factors shaping fungal adaptation to increased temperature and expanded geographical regions. Furthermore, the emergence...
Minireview | Host-Microbe BiologyIt’s the Little Things (in Viral RNA)Chemical modifications of viral RNA are an integral part of the viral life cycle and are present in most classes of viruses. To date, more than 170 RNA modifications have been discovered in all types of cellular RNA. Only a few, however, have been found in viral RNA, and the function of most of these has yet to be elucidated. Those few we have discovered and whose functions we understand have a varied effect on each virus. They...
Minireview | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyHistone Modifications and Other Facets of Epigenetic Regulation in Trypanosomatids: Leaving Their MarkHistone posttranslational modifications (PTMs) modulate several eukaryotic cellular processes, including transcription, replication, and repair. Vast arrays of modifications have been identified in conventional eukaryotes over the last 20 to 25 years. While initial studies uncovered these primarily on histone tails, multiple modifications were subsequently found on the central globular domains as well. Histones are evolutionarily...
Minireview | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyEnterobacterial Common Antigen: Synthesis and Function of an Enigmatic MoleculeThe outer membrane (OM) of Gram-negative bacteria poses a barrier to antibiotic entry due to its high impermeability. Thus, there is an urgent need to study the function and biogenesis of the OM. In Enterobacterales, an order of bacteria with many pathogenic members, one of the components of the OM is enterobacterial common antigen (ECA). We have known of the presence of ECA on the cell surface of Enterobacterales for...
Minireview | Host-Microbe BiologyPathogenesis of COVID-19 from the Perspective of the Damage-Response FrameworkThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) presents the medical community with a significant challenge. COVID-19 is an entirely new disease with disparate clinical manifestations that are difficult to reconcile with a single pathogenic principle. Here, we explain how the flexible paradigm of the “damage-response framework” (DRF) of microbial pathogenesis...
Minireview | Therapeutics and PreventionA Physiological Basis for Nonheritable Antibiotic ResistanceAntibiotics constitute one of the cornerstones of modern medicine. However, individuals may succumb to a bacterial infection if a pathogen survives exposure to antibiotics. The ability of bacteria to survive bactericidal antibiotics results from genetic changes in the preexisting bacterial genome, from the acquisition of genes from other organisms, and from nonheritable phenomena that give rise to antibiotic tolerance. Nonheritable...