Scope

Microbial Physiology and Metabolism publishes articles on the subjects of microbial structure, metabolism and physiology.

Genome sequencing, comparative genomics and systems biology have provided an unprecedented stimulus to molecular microbiological research, while providing global insights into the repertoire of biochemical reactions that define individual microbes. Over the course of a few days, it is now possible to obtain global insights into the metabolic processes that describe how microorganisms obtain the energy for their growth, produce the building blocks for biosynthesis, polymerize those materials into cellular constituents, and assemble them into living cells – information that previously might have taken a lifetime (or more) to discover and describe. Insights are increasingly achieved from culture-independent or multi-organism experiments, which have freed microbiologists from nearly 150 years of fixation on pure-culture studies – often conducted under conditions that have little to do with those experienced by natural populations. As our integrated knowledge of microbial physiology advances in these new and exciting ways, opportunities for metabolic engineering of microorganisms – even creating microbes de novo – to produce products useful for mankind are also advancing rapidly. Microbial Physiology and Metabolism aspires to present the cutting-edge research that provides the underpinnings of our knowledge of how bacterial and archaeal structure leads to function, how metabolic processes are regulated, how microbes respond to environmental stressors, and how microbes can be manipulated to enhance their growth or the production of desired products. The section will publish articles describing new methods, metabolites, regulators, regulatory responses and mechanisms, and global analyses based on genomic, metagenomic, and systems biology methods as well as studies derived from classical physiological and metabolic approaches. We will also consider physiological and metabolic research on eukaryotic microbes, although authors may find sister sections, such as Fungi and their Interactions, to be more appropriate venues for such studies.

A major goal of Microbial Physiology and Metabolism is to assist scientists in rapidly communicating their research results to other scientists through an open, free-access platform, free from some of the restrictions (e. g., limited use of color figures) inherent in journals dependent on print format. An additional goal is to provide a forum in which scientists can communicate their most important results to the public in ways that can strengthen secondary education and general public awareness of the critical roles that microorganisms play in global processes that define and maintain our fragile, changing environment.

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