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Current Issue of PLoSBiology

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Table of Contents

February 2024

Cover

Ultrastructural insights into the microsporidian infection apparatus reveal the kinetics and morphological transitions of polar tube and cargo during host cell invasion
Issue Image

During host cell invasion, microsporidian spores translocate their entire cytoplasmic content through a thin, hollow superstructure known as the polar tube. To achieve this, the polar tube transitions from a compact spring-like state inside the environmental spore to a long needle-like tube capable of long-range sporoplasm delivery. The unique mechanical properties of the building blocks of the polar tube allow for an explosive transition from compact to extended state and support the rapid cargo translocation process. The molecular and structural factors enabling this ultrafast process and the structural changes during cargo delivery are unknown. Here, Sharma et al. employ light microscopy and in situ cryo-electron tomography to visualize multiple ultrastructural states of the Vairimorpha necatrix polar tube, allowing them to evaluate the kinetics of its germination and characterize the underlying morphological transitions. They describe a cargo-filled state with a unique ordered arrangement of microsporidian ribosomes, which cluster along the thin tube wall, and an empty post-translocation state with a reduced diameter but a thicker wall. The image shows a schematic representation of the microsporidian polar tube transporting ribosome layers into the host.

Image Credit: The Barandun Laboratory

Editorial

Promoting research quality

Ulrich Dirnagl, Nonia Pariente

PLOS Biology: published February 27, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002554

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Essay

A unified framework for evolutionary genetic and physiological theories of aging

Jean-François Lemaître, Jacob Moorad, Jean-Michel Gaillard, Alexei A. Maklakov, Daniel H. Nussey

PLOS Biology: published February 27, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002513

Consensus View

Recommendations for accelerating open preprint peer review to improve the culture of science

Michele Avissar-Whiting, Frédérique Belliard, Stefano M. Bertozzi, Amy Brand, Katherine Brown, Géraldine Clément-Stoneham, Stephanie Dawson, Gautam Dey, Daniel Ecer, Scott C. Edmunds, Ashley Farley, Tara D. Fischer, Maryrose Franko, James S. Fraser, Kathryn Funk, Clarisse Ganier, Melissa Harrison, Anna Hatch, Haley Hazlett, Samantha Hindle, Daniel W. Hook, Phil Hurst, Sophien Kamoun, Robert Kiley, Michael M. Lacy, Marcel LaFlamme, Rebecca Lawrence, Thomas Lemberger, Maria Leptin, Elliott Lumb, Catriona J. MacCallum, Christopher Steven Marcum, Gabriele Marinello, Alex Mendonça, Sara Monaco, Kleber Neves, Damian Pattinson, Jessica K. Polka, Iratxe Puebla, Martyn Rittman, Stephen J. Royle, Daniela Saderi, Richard Sever, Kathleen Shearer, John E. Spiro, Bodo Stern, Dario Taraborelli, Ron Vale, Claudia G. Vasquez, Ludo Waltman, Fiona M. Watt, Zara Y. Weinberg, Mark Williams

PLOS Biology: published February 29, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002502

Unsolved Mysteries

Knowns and unknowns about the neurobiology of stuttering

Nicole E. Neef, Soo-Eun Chang

PLOS Biology: published February 22, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002492

How important is EMT for cancer metastasis?

Toni Celià-Terrassa, Yibin Kang

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002487

Perspectives

Harnessing online digital data in biodiversity monitoring

Andrea Soriano-Redondo, Ricardo A. Correia, Vijay Barve, Thomas M. Brooks, Stuart H. M. Butchart, Ivan Jarić, Ritwik Kulkarni, Richard J. Ladle, Ana Sofia Vaz, Enrico Di Minin

PLOS Biology: published February 15, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002497

Towards responsible research assessment: How to reward research quality

Anne Gärtner, Daniel Leising, Felix D. Schönbrodt

PLOS Biology: published February 26, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002553

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The genomic case against genetic determinism

Gene E. Robinson, Rina Bliss, Matthew E. Hudson

PLOS Biology: published February 27, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002510

The principle of uncertainty in biology: Will machine learning/artificial intelligence lead to the end of mechanistic studies?

Victor de Lorenzo

PLOS Biology: published February 8, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002495

Primers

The more, the healthier: Tree diversity reduces forest pests and pathogens

Felicia Keesing, Richard S. Ostfeld

PLOS Biology: published February 28, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002525

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New twists in the evolution of retinal direction selectivity

Takeshi Yoshimatsu, Tom Baden

PLOS Biology: published February 29, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002538

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Tracing the evolutionary origins of antiviral immunity

James B. Eaglesham, Philip J. Kranzusch

PLOS Biology: published February 6, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002481

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Research Articles

Evolutionary history of host trees amplifies the dilution effect of biodiversity on forest pests

Andrew V. Gougherty, T. Jonathan Davies

PLOS Biology: published February 27, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002473

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Oxidative stress changes interactions between 2 bacterial species from competitive to facilitative

Rita Di Martino, Aurore Picot, Sara Mitri

PLOS Biology: published February 5, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002482

Relation of connectome topology to brain volume across 103 mammalian species

Maria Grazia Puxeddu, Joshua Faskowitz, Caio Seguin, Yossi Yovel, Yaniv Assaf, Richard Betzel, Olaf Sporns

PLOS Biology: published February 5, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002489

Original speech and its echo are segregated and separately processed in the human brain

Jiaxin Gao, Honghua Chen, Mingxuan Fang, Nai Ding

PLOS Biology: published February 15, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002498

Older adults preserve audiovisual integration through enhanced cortical activations, not by recruiting new regions

Samuel A. Jones, Uta Noppeney

PLOS Biology: published February 6, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002494

Neurons in the monkey frontopolar cortex encode learning stage and goal during a fast learning task

Simon Nougaret, Lorenzo Ferrucci, Francesco Ceccarelli, Stefano Sacchetti, Danilo Benozzo, Valeria Fascianelli, Richard C. Saunders, Luc Renaud, Aldo Genovesio

PLOS Biology: published February 16, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002500

Sequential neuronal processing of number values, abstract decision, and action in the primate prefrontal cortex

Pooja Viswanathan, Anna M. Stein, Andreas Nieder

PLOS Biology: published February 16, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002520

The anterior cingulate cortex controls the hyperactivity in subthalamic neurons in male mice with comorbid chronic pain and depression

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PLOS Biology: published February 22, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002518

Defining morphologically and genetically distinct GABAergic/cholinergic amacrine cell subtypes in the vertebrate retina

Yan Li, Shuguang Yu, Xinling Jia, Xiaoying Qiu, Jie He

PLOS Biology: published February 16, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002506

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CD38 promotes hematopoietic stem cell dormancy

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PLOS Biology: published February 29, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002517

Chronic infection control relies on T cells with lower foreign antigen binding strength generated by N-nucleotide diversity

Hassan Jamaleddine, Dakota Rogers, Geneviève Perreault, Jérémy Postat, Dhanesh Patel, Judith N. Mandl, Anmar Khadra

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Dynamics of bacterial recombination in the human gut microbiome

Zhiru Liu, Benjamin H. Good

PLOS Biology: published February 8, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002472

Cellular arrangement impacts metabolic activity and antibiotic tolerance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms

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The type IV pilus chemoreceptor PilJ controls chemotaxis of one bacterial species towards another

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Ebola virus VP35 interacts non-covalently with ubiquitin chains to promote viral replication

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Proteins that carry dual targeting signals can act as tethers between peroxisomes and partner organelles

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Short Reports

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Ultrastructural insights into the microsporidian infection apparatus reveal the kinetics and morphological transitions of polar tube and cargo during host cell invasion

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PLOS Biology: published February 29, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002533

Methods and Resources

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