Virtually all plants and animals, including humans, are home to symbiotic microorganisms.
Symbiotic interactions can be neutral, harmful or have beneficial effects on the host …

Most of the genetic, cellular, and biochemical diversity of life rests within single-celled
organisms—the prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) and microbial eukaryotes (protists) …

For over 300 million years, insects have relied on symbiotic microbes for nutrition and
defence. However, it is unclear whether specific ecological conditions have repeatedly …

Animal hosts have initiated myriad symbiotic associations with microorganisms and often
have maintained these symbioses for millions of years, spanning drastic changes in …

While the importance of mutualisms across the tree of life is recognized, it is not understood
why some organisms evolve high levels of dependence on mutualistic partnerships, while …

Bacteriocytes are host cells specialized to harbor symbionts in certain insect taxa. The
adaptation, development, and evolution of bacteriocytes underlie insect symbiosis …

Microbiome breeding is a new artificial selection technique that seeks to change the genetic
composition of microbiomes in order to benefit plant or animal hosts. Recent experimental …

Beneficial associations with bacteria are widespread across animals, spanning a range of
symbiont localizations, transmission routes, and functions. While some of these associations …

The outer membrane (OM) of Gram-negative bacteria poses a barrier to antibiotic entry due
to its high impermeability. Thus, there is an urgent need to study the function and biogenesis …

Many animals are dependent on microbial partners that provide essential nutrients lacking
from their diet. Ticks, whose diet consists exclusively on vertebrate blood, rely on maternally …