Quantcast
Channel: Phys.org news tagged with:bacterial cell walls
Browsing latest articles
Browse All 48 View Live

Pining for a beetle genome

The sequencing and assembly of the genome of the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae, is published online this week in Genome Biology. The species is native to North America, where it is...

View Article



Study analyzes dynamical properties in antibiotic resistance enzyme

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been emerging at an alarming rate. In some of the scariest of these pathogens, the mechanism responsible for the bacteria's ability to defeat antibiotics is a complex...

View Article

3-D molecular syringes: Scientists solve structure of infection tool used by...

Abdominal pain, fever, diarrhoea—these symptoms could point to an infection with the bacterium Yersinia. The bacterium's pathogenic potential is based on a syringe-like injection apparatus called...

View Article

Probe opens new path for drug development against leading STD

Biochemical sleuthing by an Indiana University graduate student has ended a nearly 50-year-old search to find a megamolecule in bacterial cell walls commonly used as a target for antibiotics, but whose...

View Article

Scientists sleuth out proteins involved in Crohn's disease

(Phys.org) —University of Delaware researchers have identified a protein, hiding in plain sight, that acts like a bodyguard to help protect and stabilize another key protein, that when unstable, is...

View Article


Fighting bacteria—with viruses

Research published today in PLOS Pathogens reveals how viruses called bacteriophages destroy the bacterium Clostridium difficile (C. diff), which is becoming a serious problem in hospitals and...

View Article

New insights in survival strategies of bacteria

Bacteria are particularly ingenious when it comes to survival strategies. They often create a biofilm to protect themselves from a hostile environment, for example during treatment with antibiotics. A...

View Article

Chemists modify antibiotic to vanquish resistant bacteria

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised a new antibiotic based on vancomycin that is powerfully effective against vancomycin-resistant strains of MRSA and other disease-causing...

View Article


Researchers discover how microbes build a powerful antibiotic

Researchers report in the journal Nature that they have made a breakthrough in understanding how a powerful antibiotic agent is made in nature. Their discovery solves a decades-old mystery, and opens...

View Article


Water purification at the molecular level

(Phys.org) —Fracking for oil and gas is a dirty business. The process uses millions of gallons of water laced with chemicals and sand. Most of the contaminated water is trucked to treatment plants to...

View Article

The nutritionists within: Firebugs depend on gut bacteria for vitamin supply

Microbial partners are important for the nutrition of many insects. They help detoxify and digest food, but also provide essential nutrients that insects need in order to survive. The European firebug...

View Article

Scientists reveal how penicillin deals bacteria a devastating blow – work...

Penicillin, the wonder drug discovered in 1928, works in ways that are still mysterious almost a century later. One of the oldest and most widely used antibiotics, it attacks enzymes that build the...

View Article

Scientists blueprint tiny cellular 'nanomachine'

Scientists have drawn up molecular blueprints of a tiny cellular 'nanomachine', whose evolution is an extraordinary feat of nature, by using one of the brightest X-ray sources on Earth.

View Article


Unearthing novel antibiotics to deal with the rise of superbugs

As doctors globally are warned that overconsumption of antibiotics has led to resistance to the drug – medical researchers are equally focussed on finding alternatives to treatments for bacterial...

View Article

Study provides insight into bacterial resilience and antibiotic targets

Researchers at UC San Francisco and Stanford University have performed the first comprehensive survey of the central genes and proteins essential to bacterial life. The study, which combined a new...

View Article


Research may point to new ways to deliver drugs into bacteria

An exhaustive look at how bacteria hold their ground and avoid getting pushed around by their environment shows how dozens of genes aid the essential job of protecting cells from popping when tensions...

View Article

How a germ catches a virus

Bacteriophages – short phages – represent a group of small viruses that infect bacteria and are able to alter or destroy them. That is why their name can be translated as bacteria-eater. In order to...

View Article


How the bacterial protective shell is adapted to challenging environments

Researchers at Umeå University in Sweden have published new findings on the adaptation of the bacterial cell wall in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The study reveals novel bacterial...

View Article

Genetic comparisons provide insight into the evolution of a crucial filament...

Divergent evolutionary pathways in different domains of life have resulted in distinct filament systems that underlie cellular structure and polymerizing-protein motors, according to A*STAR...

View Article

Sick animals limit disease transmission by isolating themselves from their peers

Sick wild house mice spend time away from their social groups, leading to a decrease in their potential for disease transmission according to a new study by evolutionary biologists from the University...

View Article

Researchers develop novel wound-healing technology

A WSU research team has successfully used a mild electric current to take on and beat drug-resistant bacterial infections, a technology that may eventually be used to treat chronic wound infections.

View Article


Bacterial protein structure could aid development of new antibiotics

Bacterial cells have an added layer of protection, called the cell wall, that animal cells don't. Assembling this tough armor entails multiple steps, some of which are targeted by antibiotics like...

View Article


Cells divide by 'bricklaying on moving scaffolding'

It is the most crucial mechanism in life - the division of cells. For 25 years, it has been known that bacteria split into two by forming a Z ring at their centre. They use this to cut themselves into...

View Article

Rainbow dyes add greater precision to fight against 'superbugs'

A study reported Feb. 17 in the journal Science led by researchers at Indiana University and Harvard University is the first to reveal in extreme detail the operation of the biochemical clockwork that...

View Article

Fruit flies halt reproduction during infection

A protective mechanism that allows fruit flies to lay fewer eggs in response to bacterial infection is explained in a study published in the journal eLife.

View Article


Scientists engineer human-germ hybrid molecules to attack drug-resistant...

Inspired by viruses that attack and kill bacteria, researchers at The Rockefeller University have created an entirely new weapon against disease-causing bacteria that shows great promise for treating...

View Article

Predatory bacteria that engineer portholes and paint frescoes in harmful...

A microbiological mystery of how one bacterium could invade another and grow inside it without breaking the other bacterium instantly has been illuminated by scientists at the University of Nottingham...

View Article

Uncovering bacterial cell wall secrets to combat antibiotic resistance

Cell walls—the jacket-like structures that surround all known bacteria—may turn out to be bacteria's undoing , holding the key to developing new drugs that target it for destruction.

View Article

Using neutrons to study how resistant bacteria evolve

The discovery of penicillin almost 90 years ago ushered in the age of modern antibiotics, but the growth of antibiotic resistance means bacterial infections like pneumonia and tuberculosis are becoming...

View Article



Microbial resident enables beetles to feed on a leafy diet

An international team including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology has described a bacterium residing in a species of leaf beetles which has an unexpected feature: it...

View Article
Browsing latest articles
Browse All 48 View Live




Latest Images