Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-released lipid-wrapped nano- to micro-sized particles without self-replication ability. Plant cells secrete EVs (plant EVs, PEVs) during normal development of plants and in plant response to external stimuli. Distinct from plant-derived nanoparticles, here we narrow the definition of PEVs, which are naturally secreted by cells, excluding those from disrupted cells or artificial vesicles with properties similar to those of EVs. We focus on PEV classification, isolation methods, and their biogenesis, cargos, biological functions, and applications. In addition, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in this field.

Marine bacteria alternate between planktonic and surface-attached lifestyles, facing continuous phage predation. However, how these lifestyles shape resistance evolution remains poorly understood. Using a Roseobacter model strain, we demonstrate that surface-attached populations exhibit 26-fold higher survivability than planktonic counterparts during lytic phage infection. This advantage emerges through the evolution of heterogeneous subpopulations exhibiting diverse resistance phenotypes, a pattern absent in planktonic populations. Whole-genome sequencing of 139 heritable phage-resistant mutants revealed fundamentally divergent mutational patterns, with planktonic populations predominantly harboring tandem repeat mutations, whereas surface-attached populations favor non-coding mutations. Despite this, both lifestyles independently converged on mutations in the CtrA phosphorelay system, identifying CtrA as a previously unrecognized evolutionary target of phage-driven selection and triggering planktonic-to-surface-attached switch. Further analyses revealed systematic downregulation of motility genes and enhancement of biofilm formation, mechanistically linking phage resistance to lifestyle transitions. The identified CtrA mutations occur in regions highly conserved across ecologically important marine Alphaproteobacteria (Rhodobacterales) that are known to switch between planktonic and surface-attached states, suggesting lifestyle-dependent evolutionary trajectories may broadly shape phage resistance in marine ecosystems. Marine bacteria are often under constant phage predation. Li et al. present that surface-attached populations exhibit 26-fold higher survivability than planktonic counterparts during lytic phage infection. They identify CtrA as an evolutionary target for phage-driven selection towards an attached lifestyle.

The discovery of antibiotics and their subsequent therapeutic use revolutionized our ability to treat once deadly infectious diseases, and antibiotics have become one of the most commonly prescribed drug classes. Unfortunately, these compounds not only target pathogenic strains, but also non-pathogenic bacteria that fulfill important functions for the human host. As such, antibiotic treatment can cause severe collateral damage, resulting in dysbiosis, for example, in the human gut microbiome. Given the immense importance of the gut microbiome for human health, antibiotic-induced dysbiosis can cause a variety of detrimental health outcomes. In addition, antibiotic (over-)use causes selection of antibiotic-resistant strains, and the human gut microbiome has become a major reservoir for resistance determinants that can transfer to pathogenic isolates and cause hard-to-treat infections. In this review, we describe various adverse effects that antibiotic use has on the human gut microbiome, how we can approach this problem experimentally, and discuss pathways to mitigate antibiotic-induced collateral damage.

Feedforward loops (FFLs) and feedback loops (FBLs) are ubiquitous network motifs that mediate signal filtering, pulse generation, and state switching; yet, how coupling FBLs to FFLs produces robust multistability—a key mechanism for cellular decision-making—remains unclear. Here, we systematically investigate coupled FFL–FBL architectures by focusing on two prevalent FFL types, each with AND or OR logic, yielding four distinct frameworks. For each framework, we enumerate all 36 = 729 possible circuits, corresponding to three possible states (activation, inhibition, or absence) for each of six feedback edges, formulate each circuit as a system of ordinary differential equations, and quantify robustness as the proportion of 100,000 randomly sampled parameter sets exhibiting multistability. Our results reveal two key principles. First, positive self-activation is a primary driver of multistability, but the identity of the critical node(s) depends on the FFL type and logic. Second, coherent FFLs support multistability more readily than incoherent ones, whereas the choice between AND and OR logic has a comparatively weaker effect. Notably, we identify representative high-performing circuits within each framework and find that a small set of circuit designs remain robustly multistable across all four frameworks. These findings advance the theoretical understanding of motif design and provide practical guidelines for engineering synthetic multistable circuits.