Staphylococcus aureus, a gram-positive bacterium, which causes skin and soft tissue infections in hospital and community settings, is one of the leading threats in public health because of their proficiency to develop biofilms as an adaptive feature.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a clinically significant opportunistic pathogen causing both acute and chronic pneumonia infections. However, constructing an animal model for chronic infection remains challenging, hindering research advancement in this field.

Colorectal cancer remains a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. While chemotherapy and radiotherapy serve as a cornerstone of treatment, their clinical efficacy is frequently compromised by therapeutic resistance and gastrointestinal toxicity. Accumulating evidence indicates that the gut microbiota is a critical determinant of both treatment response and adverse events. This review describes a closed-loop model in which chemotherapy and radiotherapy disrupt gut microbial homeostasis, whereas microbiota dysbiosis in turn impairs therapeutic efficacy and exacerbates treatment-related toxicity, thereby establishing an interaction between therapy and the gut microbiota. Probiotics are discussed as a microbiota-directed adjuvant strategy. By restoring microecological balance, reinforcing intestinal barrier function, and modulating systemic immunity, these interventions may provide dual benefits by sensitizing tumors to chemotherapy and radiotherapy and mitigating treatment-related toxicity. Overall, clarifying and therapeutically leveraging this microbiota-chemotherapy and radiotherapy interaction may provide a rational avenue to improve the therapeutic index of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. [PubMed and Web of Science, database inception to January 2026].

Screening with tuberculin remains widely used in humans and livestock for detecting mycobacterial immune sensitization, but tuberculin skin test (TST) interpretation is influenced by Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccination, environmental non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), cutoff selection, and epidemiological context. The TST uses purified protein derivative (PPD), a complex mycobacterial antigen preparation, to elicit delayed-type hypersensitivity measured as local skin induration. Aquaculture vaccination is established for farmed fish, whereas vaccines targeting fish mycobacteriosis remain largely experimental, including BCG, attenuated or heat-inactivated mycobacteria, DNA vaccines, mycolic acids, and defined antigen combinations. This Perspective asks whether experimental mycobacterial vaccination of fish could plausibly influence human TST interpretation in occupationally exposed aquaculture workers. Such an interaction would require antigenic overlap with PPD, environmental release or persistence of mycobacterial material linked to vaccination, repeated worker exposure through water, biofilms, fish tissues, surfaces, or skin microtrauma, immune sensitization or amplification, and an induration shift sufficient to alter classification at operational cutoffs. The article defines this as a testable One Health interface and proposes construct-level antigen mapping, environmental monitoring around vaccination events, and prospective worker studies using continuous TST measurement with parallel IGRA testing.

Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii are a globally distributed fungal pathogen that causes a significant number of cryptococcosis worldwide, especially among immunocompromised individuals, although immunocompetent may also be affected. This infection begins when Cryptococcus is inhaled from the environment into the lungs resulting in pneumonia. Critically, the fungus can disseminate systemically and cross the blood-brain barrier causing cryptococcal meningitis (CM), the severe clinical form of the disease. CM, when untreated, is fatal in a short period of time causing high mortality rates. This mortality is associated with immunosuppression, failures in treatment, diagnostic problems, and the virulence of Cryptococcus. We often attribute epidemiological and pathogenesis studies to knowledge acquired from C. neoformans; however, studies have shown that pathogenic differences exist between various Cryptococcus species complexes. In this review, we will present the literature about epidemiology and virulence factors of C. neoformans and C. gattii, emphasizing their differences and pointing out unexplored research. Moreover, we will demonstrate strategies aimed at inhibiting virulence factors that can become a valuable source for the development of new drugs.Literature search: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (from database inception to June 2026).