Nasty nanoinjectors pose a new target for antibiotic research

If you've ever suffered the misery of food poisoning from a bacterium like Shigella or Salmonella, then your cells have been on the receiving end of "nanoinjectors"—microscopic spikes made from proteins through which pathogens ...

Breaking up the superbugs' party

The fight against antibiotic-resistant superbugs has taken a step forward thanks to a new discovery by scientists at The University of Nottingham.

Chlamydia protein has an odd structure, scientists find

A protein secreted by the chlamydia bug has a very unusual structure, according to scientists in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio. The discovery of the protein's shape could ...

Pathogen turns protein into a virulence factor in one easy step

To infect its host, the respiratory pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa takes an ordinary protein usually involved in making other proteins and adds three small molecules to turn it into a key for gaining access to human cells. ...

Sudy unravel mechanism critical for fungal virulence

Metallothioneins, proteins able to capture metal ions, play a major role in the virulence of Cryptococcus neoformans, a fungal pathogen which causes severe infections in immunodeficient and immunocompetent individuals (AIDS ...

Study: Odd biochemistry yields lethal bacterial protein

While working out the structure of a cell-killing protein produced by some strains of the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis, researchers stumbled on a bit of unusual biochemistry. They found that a single enzyme helps form ...

The dual significance of bacterial protein secretion

Secretion of bacterial proteins is an essential biological process with biotechnological and biomedical impact on human health. European scientists studied a universal and widely conserved bacterial secretory pathway towards ...

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