771 papers
Microbiology explores the invisible world of tiny life forms that shape our health, environment, and even the air we breathe. From bacteria and viruses to fungi and parasites, this field investigates how these microscopic organisms interact with us and each other, driving everything from disease outbreaks to beneficial fermentation processes. Understanding them is crucial for developing new medicines, improving food safety, and combating global health challenges.
At Gist.Science, we make the latest discoveries in this dynamic field accessible to everyone. We process every new preprint uploaded to bioRxiv in this category, transforming dense academic findings into both clear, plain-language explanations and detailed technical summaries. This ensures that whether you are a student, a researcher, or simply curious, you can grasp the significance of cutting-edge science without getting lost in jargon.
Below are the most recent papers in microbiology, curated and summarized directly from the bioRxiv server to keep you at the forefront of discovery.
This study demonstrates that mitochondrial inheritance is a critical, environment-dependent determinant of fitness in synthetic yeast allopolyploids, necessitating its inclusion alongside nuclear genome composition for the rational design of industrially relevant strains.
This study demonstrates that systematically enriching robust electroactive microbial communities from wastewater sludge and operating microbial electrosynthesis reactors under strict anaerobic conditions at an applied potential of -1000 mV significantly enhances carbon dioxide conversion efficiency and commodity chemical yields, offering a scalable pathway for industrial carbon capture and utilization.
This study reveals that de novo fatty acid synthesis protects CD4+ T cells from HIV-1 infection by maintaining the structural integrity of the nuclear envelope, which acts as a physical barrier to viral capsid entry, whereas inhibiting this metabolic pathway disrupts the nuclear envelope and increases susceptibility to the virus.
By developing a stochastic model of CRISPR array dynamics, the study reveals that a spontaneous division of labor between short-term and long-term memory emerges to resolve the trade-off between acquiring new spacers and retaining old ones, driven by the ratio of array size to viral epidemic decay time.
This study establishes an open-source, sample-matched multi-omics dataset linking over 100 fermented foods to human anti-inflammatory responses via cell-based models, providing the foundational resource needed to develop predictive models of the molecular mechanisms underlying these health benefits.
This study demonstrates that organic-acid-derived feather hydrolysate acts as a strong ecological filter, driving a rapid and reproducible succession in the soil microbiome toward copiotrophic, plant-beneficial taxa while suppressing putative phytopathogens over a 30-day period.
This paper investigates the dual nature of the *Candida albicans* metacaspase Mca1p, revealing that its deletion has opposing effects on stress sensitivity and virulence depending on the cell's growth phase, thereby highlighting a context-dependent switch between pro-death and pro-life functions.
This paper presents near real-time neutralization data from summer 2026, revealing that emerging H3N2 subclade K region D and H1N1 D.3.1.1 Sa mutants exhibit reduced susceptibility to human antibodies, thereby providing critical evidence to inform influenza vaccine strain selection.
This study reveals that following the 2022 emergence of H5 avian influenza in Svalbard, arctic foxes experienced widespread serological exposure to the virus, with high seroprevalence rates and shifting subtype dominance (from mixed H5N1/H5N5 to predominantly H5N5) observed in 2023–2025 compared to negligible pre-emergence levels.
This study demonstrates that MERS-CoV can acquire resistance to soluble DPP4 through specific mutations in the spike protein's receptor binding domain that reduce soluble DPP4 binding while still allowing efficient viral entry into cells expressing high levels of the receptor.