A transporter which some bacteria use to recycle fragments of their cell wall has been discovered. Researchers found that the transporter controls resistance to certain kinds of cell-wall targeting ...

Endolysins are phage‐encoded enzymes that degrade the peptidoglycan layer of bacterial cell walls, a process essential for the release of progeny virions. Their ability to precisely cleave key bonds ...

The figure illustrates bacterial cell wall synthesis as mediated by an enzyme called MraY (yellow/green). The enzyme modifies the cell wall building blocks (bricks) with a carrier lipid (cyan) so that ...

Drug-resistant bacteria are becoming harder to treat, pushing scientists to look for new antibiotic targets. Researchers have now discovered that several unrelated viruses disable a key bacterial ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Quick, can you describe your grandparents?

Researchers found three bacteriophages disable MurJ, a key cell wall transporter, by locking it outward-facing. This blocks ...

We often hear about bacteria, but what exactly are they? A bacterium is a living organism that consists of a single cell (unicellular). It has ...