05/29/2025
Short Reports
Proteins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, such as Vip3Aa, are commonly used in genetically modified crops to control lepidopteran pests. Andreas Bachler, Tom Walsh and colleagues identify HaVipR1 as a novel gene in the crop pest Helicoverpa armigera whose disruption confers resistance to Vip3Aa.
Image credit: pbio.3003165
Current Issue April 2025
05/28/2025
Methods and Resources
Current commercial isothermal fluorimeters are expensive and unsuitable for field work, limiting their accessibility in low-resource settings. Francisco Quero, Jennifer Molloy, Ariel Lindner and co-authors develop an open-source, low-cost, portable isothermal fluorimeter designed for various biotechnological applications.
Image credit: Jiayi Hou and Francisco J. Quero
05/28/2025
Research Article
m5C RNA modifications are implicated in various cellular functions, but their role during neural development is poorly understood. Jian Zhang, Sheng-Jian Ji and co-workers show that the m5C reader protein Ybx1 plays a crucial role in promoting the cell cycle progression of embryonic cortical progenitor cells, essential for proper cortical development.
Image credit: pbio.3003175
05/27/2025
Research Article
Bacteria use toxic effectors to outcompete other bacteria, influencing the composition of microbial communities. Pin-Yi Song, Chia-En Tsai, See-Yeun Ting and colleagues show that the cysteine protease Cpe1, a widespread toxin in Gram negative bacteria, inhibits genome replication in competitors by cleaving and disabling DNA topoisomerases GyrB and ParE.
Image credit: pbio.3003208
05/27/2025
Short Reports
The study of circadian rhythms in human internal tissues requires repeated sampling across time, which is very challenging. Bharath Ananthasubramaniam and Ramji Venkataramanan develop COFE, a new machine learning algorithm that enables virtual sampling of internal human tissues over time, and reveal new insights into the in vivo circadian rhythms of human tumors.
Image credit: pbio.3003196
05/27/2025
Discovery Report
One of the best-characterized animal toxin-antidote systems is the peel-1/zeel-1 system in C. elegans, but the molecular mechanism of toxin and antidote activity remains unknown. Lews Caro, Michael Ailion and co-authors show that PEEL-1 co-opts the PMPL-1 membrane protein to exert toxicity by creating a novel ion channel that leads to cell swelling.
Image credit: pbio.3003182
05/20/2025
Perspective
Increasing concerns over the welfare of captive cetaceans have led to calls for their transfer to sanctuaries. This Perspective describes an unprecedented collaboration to develop the first accreditation guidelines for authentic ocean sanctuaries.
Image credit: pbio.3003166
05/15/2025
Perspective
To what extent can we predict future pathogenic microbes? Arturo Casadevall discusses why complex requirements for virulence and dynamic host-microbe interactions make probabilistic predictions difficult, but not impossible.
Image credit: pbio.3003162
05/07/2025
Consensus View
Vertebrate photoreceptors have been studied for well over a century, but a fixed nomenclature across species has been lacking. This Consensus View proposes a new consolidated and pan-vertebrate naming system for the rod and cone photoreceptors of the eye.
Image credit: pbio.3003157
05/07/2025
Perspective
Interferon is a central component of the vertebrate antiviral response. John Schoggins highlights recent findings that suggest a refined ‘limited set’ model of its activity, in which distinct viruses are targeted by small subsets of the induced gene repertoire.
Image credit: pbio.3003154
Neurotechnology offers unprecedented opportunities to treat neural disorders, restore brain function and enhance cognitive abilities. This collection explores the present and possible futures of neurotechnology to improve human health and cognition.
Translating conservation and biodiversity research from the field into the real world is a complex problem. This collection discusses issues around economics, policy, and how to do research that answers questions that decision makers have.
Symbiosis research has become a holistic and pervasive field with a mature theoretical basis. This collection showcases symbiotic relationships across the tree of life, exploring their evolutionary basis and underlying mechanisms.
PLOS Biology is 20 and we are celebrating with a collection that contains articles that look back at landmark studies that we published, others that look past and future, and others discussing how publishing and open science have evolved and what is to come.
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This collection explores engineering strategies to help us adapt plants to a changing climate, including breeding techniques, genome engineering, synthetic biology and microbiome engineering.
June 10 - 13
Meet remotely Magazine Senior Editor Joanna Clarke (jclarke@plos.org)
June 16 - 20
Meet Senior Editor Roli Roberts (rroberts@plos.org)
June 22 - 27
Meet Editor in Chief Nonia Pariente (npariente@plos.org)
June 24 - 27
Meet Associate Editor Melissa Vazquez Hernandez (mvazquezhernandez@plos.org)
June 30 - July 2
Meet Senior Editor Roli Roberts (rroberts@plos.org)
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