In this Review, Gribaldo and co-workers explore the diversity and evolution of Terrabacteria and highlight their unique cell envelopes that deviate from Gram-positive and Gram-negative classifications, challenging traditional views on the bacterial cell envelope. They also discuss the variations in outer membrane biogenesis and speculate on the evolutionary origin of the outer membrane before the last bacterial common ancestor and how it was repeatedly lost.

In this Review, Schalk explores the molecular mechanisms involved in siderophore-mediated iron acquisition in bacteria. In addition, the possible applications for siderophores in the environment, agriculture and medicine are also discussed.

In this Perspective, Rumbaugh and Whiteley explore the advantages and limitations of current medical biofilm models and outline a framework for quantitatively assessing model accuracy.

In a recent study, Lin et al. uncovered that a single substitution in the bovine influenza H5N1 haemagglutinin protein switches the specificity to human receptors.

A recent study found that soil microbial communities show consistent and predictable responses to extreme climatic events.

A recent study shows that the commensal bacterium Lactiplantibacillus plantarum recognizes the foregut of the fruit fly as its physical niche via sugar-binding adhesins.

In this study, Castells-Nobau et al. show that bacteriophages present in the gut microbiome contribute to the regulation of food addiction.

In this journal club, Lucy Thorne discusses a paper that compares pandemic and non-pandemic HIV and shows that the ability of pandemic HIV to effectively evade the host’s innate immune response is a key factor in its pandemic potential.

This study shows that the Campylobacter jejuni-derived genotoxin named cytolethal distending toxin promotes colorectal cancer metastasis.