https://phys.org/biology-news/microbiology/ en-us The latest science news on microbiology and cell biology. It can't be heard, but different parts of the human body are in constant conversation, communicating to keep the entire system running efficiently. For biologists, being able to listen in on this discussion is a long-sought-after goal. Over the years, researchers have caught snippets of these exchanges, but the complete dialogue has remained out of reach. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-wholistic-view-cellular-communication-entire.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:00:15 EDT news708168661 New research from Indiana University has uncovered a previously unknown vulnerability in how bacteria build the whip-like tails they use to move. The researchers found that building these tails can put stress on the protective wall surrounding a bacterial cell and uncovered systems bacteria use to keep that stress from becoming destructive. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-biologists-hidden-weak-bacteria-tails.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 09 Sep 2026 09:20:07 EDT news708162241 A new study has demonstrated that regional microbial imprints can remain detectable under commercial winemaking conditions. The research, appearing in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, shows that inoculated fermentations do not "override" native microbial diversity and that vineyard management and environmental conditions affect wine quality. The study helps explain why wines from different regions taste distinct even when made with similar techniques and supports regional flavors and branding. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-local-microbes-persist-wine-commercial.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 09 Sep 2026 09:00:06 EDT news708078721 Every cell relies on ribosomes, the molecular machines that read genetic instructions and use them to assemble proteins. A cell needs thousands of types of proteins at any one time, so ribosomes must be generalists, capable of using instructions to produce any protein. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rewire-ribosomes-specialize-protein.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 19:40:01 EDT news708105962 From repairing damaged tissues to developing better implants, many medical developments depend on materials that can mimic the complex properties of human tissue. Meta-biomaterials are among the most promising candidates. By tailoring their geometry, researchers can create materials with properties similar to those of natural tissues. But there is a catch: Changing one property often changes several others at the same time. TU Delft scientists have now developed a method to decouple these properties. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-untangling-meta-biomaterial-puzzle-property.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 19:00:07 EDT news708103801 Extreme heat waves disrupt life in soil. Soil bacteria that produce and resist antibiotics switch into survival mode, temporarily reducing the number of resistance genes. At the same time, heat and drought are causing significant damage to soils and ecosystems, especially in cold, wet regions such as the Netherlands. This is evident from a large-scale European study by soil ecologist Franciska de Vries (University of Amsterdam) and colleagues. The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-inhibit-antibiotic-resistance-soils-price.html Ecology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 13:00:08 EDT news708081661 Bacteria can survive antibiotics in several ways, including by pumping the drugs out of their cells before they can take effect. Researchers at the University of Osaka have discovered a previously unknown mechanism that allows the bacterium responsible for many cases of pneumonia and meningitis to export the antibiotic fosfomycin. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-antibiotics-route-bacterial-drug-resistance.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:40:04 EDT news708080161 A new fluorescence microscopy technique that generates super-resolution images from a single camera exposure could help researchers study rapid movements within cells that are difficult to capture with existing methods. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-super-resolution-imaging-reveals-cells.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 08:40:08 EDT news708075481 The human genome is about two meters (6.6 feet) long, yet it is folded inside a cell nucleus only about 10 micrometers in diameter. To fit into this tiny space, DNA is wrapped around histone proteins to form nucleosomes, which are further organized into chromatin. For decades, chromatin has often been described in two simple forms: euchromatin, which is active, open and accessible, and heterochromatin, which is more compact and repressed. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-super-resolution-imaging-reveals-cohesin.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:00:09 EDT news708012662 A squishy worm that starts its life as something of a floating head in the Pacific Ocean is changing what scientists know about metamorphosis at the cellular level. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-worm-radical-metamorphosis-functions-cells.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:00:04 EDT news707993581 As an embryo develops from a small cluster of stem cells, those once "blank slate" cells begin to take on more specialized roles like brain, liver or muscle cells and organize themselves into three-dimensional structures such as tissues and organs. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-decodes-cell-fingerprints-diverse.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:00:03 EDT news707993406 The immune system is a highly sophisticated defense network designed to protect against pathogens. A research team from the Universities of Würzburg and Jena and the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (Leibniz-HKI) has shown that certain components of the immune system can actually help the yeast Candida albicans evade immune attack. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-neutrophil-vesicles-candida-albicans-evade.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 07 Sep 2026 14:20:08 EDT news707998895 In recent years, scientists have developed methods to measure a cell's transcriptome, or all the RNA produced by a cell, to study the cell's identity and genetic activity. However, these methods rely on killing the cell to access the bits of RNA within and offer only a one-time snapshot. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-virus-particles-enable-gene-tracking.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:00:02 EDT news707739962 Symbiotic ammonia-oxidizing archaea in marine sponges are not strict specialists but true "flexitarians." A team led by microbiologists Bettina Glasl and Katharina Kitzinger from the University of Vienna, in collaboration with partners from Australia, has shown that, unlike their free-living relatives studied thus far, these microbes dine not only on ammonia but also on amino acids such as valine, leucine and isoleucine—and presumably do so to communicate with their animal host. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances , shed new light on one of the oldest animal-microbe symbiotic relationships on Earth and point to a previously underestimated role played by archaea. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-archaea-flexitarians-ammonia-oxidizing-microbes.html Ecology Fri, 04 Sep 2026 14:00:01 EDT news707587201 For most mammals, cold suppresses neural activity and diminishes the sense of touch. But the thirteen-lined ground squirrel can detect touch in conditions as low as 4°C (39°F), about as cold as the inside of a refrigerator, finds a new Yale study published in Current Biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hibernating-squirrels-retain-cold.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:40:01 EDT news707729581 Gram-negative bacteria are responsible for several infections that are hard to treat because of their high resistance to antibiotics. These bacteria possess an outermost layer called the outer membrane that acts as a protective barrier. Serving as the cell's interface with the outside world, the outer membrane contains specialized proteins that perform multiple functions, such as nutrient transport and environmental sensing. The localization of these outer membrane proteins is achieved through the combined action of several key players, including the SurA chaperone and the β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) complex. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-molecular-snapshots-reveal-bacteria-outer.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 04 Sep 2026 05:00:03 EDT news707653216 Researchers have demonstrated a series of biological tests that could serve as "proxies" for measuring how different regenerative agriculture practices could improve soil carbon—years before it would be possible to measure the carbon directly. The technique offers new insights into how effective various regenerative practices are at improving soil health. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-microbes-dead-alive-early-indicators.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:50:01 EDT news707672281 When inner and outer cell layers of sepals—the leaf-like plant organs that cover and protect the flower bud before it opens—all grow upward, the organs stay smooth and uniformly stiff, which is optimal for the plant, according to a new study. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-wrinkled-smooth-cell-growth-mechanics.html Plants & Animals Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:00:03 EDT news707654581 Cells synthesize proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and these proteins are transported to the Golgi apparatus for distribution to their ultimate destinations inside and outside the cell. The structures that transport proteins from the ER to the Golgi apparatus are called COPII vesicles; the processes that regulate the formation of COPII vesicles are only partially understood. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-stressed-cells-protein-shipping.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:07:27 EDT news707656021 There are millions of species of bacteria and archaea on Earth, remarkably little is known about most of them. Now, researchers have mined the genomes of thousands of microorganisms preserved at the RIKEN BioResource Research Center (BRC) to find organisms that may be capable of capturing CO2. BRC, located in Tsukuba—one of Japan's largest centers of scientific research—is a unique, world-class research facility. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-microbial-dark-yields-potential-carbon.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 11:40:09 EDT news707649132 Climate change continues to threaten the world's coral reefs, which support at least a quarter of all marine life. Though probiotics have been shown to rehabilitate corals in aquarium experiments, demonstrating the efficacy of such microbial therapy in the ocean is difficult. In a study published in the journal Cell Reports on Sept. 3, researchers establish that both live probiotic and inactivated postbiotic treatments improve coral health—while the animals are under thermal stress during a natural marine heat wave. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-probiotic-postbiotic-treatments-revive-stressed.html Ecology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 11:00:08 EDT news707490570 When researchers at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus set out to create a map of all the neurons in the fruit fly brain in 2008, many in the scientific community thought they were out of their minds. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-connectome-pursuing-fly-brain-rewired.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 11:00:01 EDT news707563056 As proteins are made in a cell, they are folded into the 3D structure that allows them to work, but sometimes this process can go wrong. When it does, the misfolded proteins lose some or all of their function and usually get tagged by the cell's quality assurance and maintenance crews, which try to repair the proteins or, if they can't, strip them to recycle their parts. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cellular-maintenance-crew-misfolded-proteins.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 19:20:03 EDT news707583482 In the ocean, plastic waste collects to form large garbage patches that endanger marine life. This is partly because the synthetic plastic polymers used today can only be broken down biologically—that is, by microorganisms—at a very slow rate. Instead, the physical fragmentation of these materials leads to the formation of microplastics and nanoplastics. However, microorganisms do colonize plastic waste in the environment, forming biofilms and creating a unique microbial habitat that researchers refer to as the "plastisphere." https://phys.org/news/2026-09-pac-enzyme-bioplastics-penicillin-laboratory.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:00:07 EDT news707579701 A new study led by Francesca Storici, a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and faculty member of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, has uncovered an unexpected feature of human DNA linked to gene activity and the physical organization of DNA. The findings, published in Cell, could change how scientists think about DNA organization, transcription and genome function. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-layer-human-genome-embedded-rna.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 14:20:02 EDT news707571601 Scientists have long wondered how cells organized into sheets begin to move together to form organs, especially when the sheets form closed, sphere-like surfaces and tissues with no edges to direct motion. Researchers at the University of Chicago and UC San Diego used a combination of live imaging, genetic experiments and mathematical modeling to understand how cells in the fruit fly egg chamber synchronize their movement. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cells.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:00:01 EDT news707561930 The brain cells you see in the above image help an African fish decode electric signals to spot prey, scan its murky surroundings and communicate with its fellows. By rigorously mapping how these cells in the electrosensory lobe are wired together, scientists at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute and their colleagues reveal how this brain area continually learns to filter out interference that would otherwise blind the fish's electric sense. They report their findings in Nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-electric-fish-brain-cells.html Plants & Animals Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:00:14 EDT news707400715 Researchers at VIB, VUB and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (UK) have discovered a hidden feature of human sperm cells. Using advanced imaging technologies, they discovered specialized compartments within the sperm nucleus packed with proteasomes, which are responsible for breaking down and recycling proteins. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hidden-protein-recycling-hubs-human.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 15:20:01 EDT news707483665 An international team of more than 100 scientists has taken a major step toward unlocking the secrets of some of Earth's tiniest but most important organisms. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-diatom-sequencing-genetic-differences-microscopic.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 14:00:09 EDT news707405161 Imagine a brain teaser where the challenge is to spot the difference between two nearly identical sandcastles. The only difference? The removal of three grains of sand. Scientists face a similarly exasperating challenge when looking at changes in protein levels within our cells, where small fluctuations can mean the difference between health and disease or a drug working and not working. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-screening-tool-amplifies-tiny-protein.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 11:00:16 EDT news707413442