{"title":"Gut microorganisms in the middle of drug-drug interactions.","authors":"Andrea Du Toit","doi":"10.1038/s41579-026-01308-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-026-01308-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18838,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Microbiology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":88.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147702265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mpox emergence, epidemiology, biology, clinical features and control.","authors":"Dimie Ogoina,Jake Dunning,Inger Damon,Placide Mbala,Krutika Kuppalli","doi":"10.1038/s41579-026-01305-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-026-01305-y","url":null,"abstract":"Mpox, a zoonotic orthopoxvirus disease, has transitioned from a rare infection confined to African rainforests to a global public health threat. Originally identified in laboratory monkeys in 1958, the first human case was documented in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Following the declaration of smallpox eradication in 1980 and the subsequent cessation of smallpox vaccination, mpox cases persisted at low levels before surging, ultimately leading to the declaration of two Public Health Emergencies of International Concern by the WHO in 2022 and 2024, and the Africa CDC declaration of mpox as a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security in August 2024. Monkeypox virus comprises two major clades: clade I (formerly the Central African clade) subdivided into Ia and emerging Ib variants, and clade II (formerly the West African clade) also subdivided into IIa and the globally circulating IIb subclade. Recent outbreaks demonstrate enhanced human-to-human transmission, particularly through sexual networks, challenging traditional epidemiological patterns. Clinical presentation varies by clade and transmission route, ranging from classical centrifugal rash with high lesion counts to localized anogenital lesions. This Review outlines the emergency, epidemiology, biology, transmission dynamics, risk factors, clinical characteristics, and prevention and control strategies of mpox, and identifies future priorities for addressing this ongoing global issue.","PeriodicalId":18838,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Microbiology","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":88.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147636023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The aquatic plastisphere: ecology, pathogen dissemination and antimicrobial resistance.","authors":"Michael J Ormsby,Richard S Quilliam","doi":"10.1038/s41579-026-01301-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-026-01301-2","url":null,"abstract":"The escalating volume of plastic debris in the aquatic environment has created a novel ecological niche for microorganisms. This habitat, known as the plastisphere, hosts ecologically diverse microbial communities, yet its degree of divergence in composition and function from natural substrates remains a key topic of debate. In this Review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the aquatic plastisphere, highlighting its community composition, assembly dynamics and key functional traits, such as degradation pathways and nutrient cycling. We explore how this novel environment acts as a critical hub for the persistence and dissemination of human pathogens and antimicrobial resistance. We discuss how dynamic environmental factors, together with complex inter-kingdom metabolic interactions, can reshape community composition, accelerate the evolution of resistant pathotypes and influence pathogen virulence. We conclude by emphasizing that climate-induced changes in temperature, ultraviolet light radiation, salinity and hydrodynamic patterns are likely to further influence the microbial composition and phenotypic expression of pathogens within the aquatic plastisphere. Finally, we underscore the need for a One Health approach to study the plastisphere and advocate moving the field from descriptive ecology towards a mechanistic, policy-relevant framework to address the growing public health threat amid accelerating plastic pollution and climate-driven shifts.","PeriodicalId":18838,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Microbiology","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":88.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147599470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Candida albicans steals magnesium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa unleashes resistance","authors":"Diana S. M. Ottoz","doi":"10.1038/s41579-026-01304-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41579-026-01304-z","url":null,"abstract":"This study uncovers how Pseudomonas aeruginosa acquires colistin resistance in magnesium-depleted environments created by Candida albicans by accumulating unique mutations in the lipid A biosynthetic pathway.","PeriodicalId":18838,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Microbiology","volume":"24 5","pages":"311-311"},"PeriodicalIF":103.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147518429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A trapped polymerase hastens avian influenza virus evolution","authors":"Andrea Du Toit","doi":"10.1038/s41579-026-01302-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41579-026-01302-1","url":null,"abstract":"Funk and colleagues show that acquisition of a multibasic cleavage site in H5 haemagglutinin is the result of the combination of insertion-prone RNA sequences and the formation of transient RNA structures during replication by the viral RNA polymerase.","PeriodicalId":18838,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Microbiology","volume":"24 5","pages":"310-310"},"PeriodicalIF":103.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147490061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bacterial allies against food anaphylaxis","authors":"Agustina Taglialegna","doi":"10.1038/s41579-026-01300-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41579-026-01300-3","url":null,"abstract":"This study shows that some human microbiota bacteria can metabolize immunodominant peanut allergens, thus modulating IgE-mediated anaphylaxis.","PeriodicalId":18838,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Microbiology","volume":"24 5","pages":"309-309"},"PeriodicalIF":103.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147491451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Claire E Otero,Matthew D Slein,Libby Mitchell,Adarsh Ramloul,Philipp Kolb,Margaret E Ackerman,Sallie R Permar
{"title":"Human herpesvirus evasion of humoral immunity and implications for vaccine development.","authors":"Claire E Otero,Matthew D Slein,Libby Mitchell,Adarsh Ramloul,Philipp Kolb,Margaret E Ackerman,Sallie R Permar","doi":"10.1038/s41579-026-01295-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-026-01295-x","url":null,"abstract":"Herpesviruses are highly species-specific, having co-evolved with their respective hosts over millennia. This evolutionary relationship has led to the development of highly specialized immune evasion strategies, enabling these viruses to establish lifelong infections. Periods of immunosuppression can lead to severe disease, such as graft rejection, cancer, neurodegenerative disease and autoimmune diseases, which have been linked to herpesvirus infections. Consequently, developing strategies to prevent herpesvirus-associated diseases is a critical public health priority. However, varicella zoster virus (VZV) remains the only human herpesvirus for which licensed vaccines are available. This Review explores the mechanisms of humoral immune evasion by herpesviruses and their implications for advancing immunization and treatment strategies for chronic neurological, oncological and transplant-associated diseases caused by these common viral pathogens.","PeriodicalId":18838,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Microbiology","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":88.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147446982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impacts of climate extremes on plant pathogens, microbiomes and plant health.","authors":"Chao Xiong,An-Hui Ge,Min Gao,Brajesh K Singh","doi":"10.1038/s41579-026-01290-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-026-01290-2","url":null,"abstract":"Plant diseases pose a great risk to global food security, and recent research indicates that pathogen pressures on plant productivity will substantially increase under ongoing climate change (that is, increasing CO2 levels and global warming). However, our mechanistic and predictive knowledge of the impacts of climate extremes, such as heatwaves and prolonged droughts, and their interaction with other climatic factors, on plant pathogens, hosts and microbiomes, remains largely unknown. This is an important knowledge gap that limits our ability to develop effective strategies to mitigate the socioeconomic impacts of climate change-induced plant disease outbreaks. This Review examines the impacts of key climate extremes on soil-borne pathogens, plant microbiomes and host physiology that ultimately determine disease outcomes. We explore evidence that suggests that the responses of pathogen-host-microbiome interactions to climate extremes may differ in many ways from those to long-term climate change. Climate extremes may increase the virulence and distribution of many pathogens, suppress certain plant immune responses, and weaken the core functions of host microbiomes within the disease triangle, thereby facilitating disease outbreaks. We propose an integrated pathway for harnessing microbiomes to address the critical challenges posed by climate extremes. These insights offer new approaches to mitigate disease risks by harnessing microbiomes and metabolites under climate extremes, with the potential to support climate-resilient and sustainable agricultural and natural ecosystems.","PeriodicalId":18838,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Microbiology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":88.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147394010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}