Researchers from the University of Cologne, the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT present a remarkable clinical case in the New England Journal of Medicine. The case provides new insights into the evolution of bacterial pathogens and presents the concept of heterovirulence, i.e., the simultaneous presence of subpopulations with different levels of virulence within a single infection.

Multidrug resistance is making life-saving antibiotics increasingly ineffective, leaving doctors with a few options to treat deadly bacterial infections. A new study has identified a bacterial peptide that reprograms multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli, making it vulnerable to last-resort polymyxin antibiotics. The researchers also developed an extracellular vesicle-based delivery platform that restored antibiotic activity at lower doses while reducing toxicity, introducing a new strategy that manipulates bacteria's own biology to fight drug resistance.

Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University discovered that vitiligo may involve more than the immune-mediated destruction of pigment-producing cells. Instead, they found that some melanocytes persist within vitiligo lesions but enter a reversible “dedifferentiated-like state” in which they stop producing pigment but are otherwise still intact. Pharmacological modulation of these pathways in experimental models restored melanocyte characteristics and pigment-related functions, suggesting that reactivating surviving melanocytes, in addition to controlling autoimmune responses, could represent a new therapeutic strategy for vitiligo.

An ancient molecule that existed long before the blood circulation system evolved, has been found to support cancer immunotherapy. Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan found that complement C3 protein acts inside tumors to prevent the accumulation of immunosuppressive cells, but only when produced inside the tumor. C3 circulating in the blood did not affect treatment outcomes. Published in Nature Communications, the findings suggest that artificially recreating this effect can help patients with tumors that do not naturally produce enough of this protein.   

A sunfish being blown to bits is the result of a never before described behavior of an orca pod in the Gulf of California. Researchers observed two separate events in which one orca held a sunfish carcass by the fin and another torpedoed toward it, blowing it into smithereens. The behavior could be a way to portion off more manageable pieces of food for calves present during the interaction, but it’s also possible that it serves an entirely different function: fun. The team said more observations of such events involving sunfish are needed to determine the exact ecological and evolutionary significance of the strategies in orca populations.