Genome microbiology at 20 years: who we are and where we are going

How to write (and review) a Genome Report.

As eukaryotic genomes continue to be sequenced, assembled, and annotated at decreasing cost and increasing rate, it is important that basic notification of the availability of these genomes, along with essential information about them, be made available to the community. One way of doing this is through publication of...

From predicted bacteriocins to ecological function

Highlights • Predicted bacteriocin loci do not by themselves establish ecological function.• We distinguish transcriptional, conditional, phenotypic, and ecological silence.• Sequence data reveal encoded potential, but context determines realized function.• A function-first framework links loci to expression, targets,...

Taking the heat: Breaking the temperature limits of eukaryotic life.

What's the highest temperature at which complex life can grow? It's an old question. Here, Rappaport and colleagues describe a thermophilic amoeba that breaks the previous record, which was set at ∼60°C, and suggest the beginnings of an answer to what innovations enable this organism to take the heat.

Creating the first synthetic plastid genome in plants.

This work has shown that the compact and biotechnologically attractive plastid genome represents an ideal target to launch plant genome writing at scale.

Ambient temperature is encoded in the metagenome of microbial communities

Mitochondria before we knew them.

In this issue of Cell, Chen et al. chart mitochondrial proteome diversity across eukaryotes, revealing an unexpectedly complex ancestral proteome alongside extensive lineage-specific innovation. Their broad phylogenetic reconstruction provides new insights into the mitochondrial proteome of the last eukaryotic common a...