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 ...

For millennia the arms race between bacteria and animals was fought through mutations and evolution. As modern bacteria evolve antimicrobial resistance, developing new treatments is a critical area of ...

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 ...

Blow up a long balloon and two things happen: it gets longer and it gets wider. Now imagine a living cell that inflates itself under enormous pressure and yet only grows longer, never adding width.

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?

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 ...