Inspired by seeing watermelons grow into box shapes, his first step was to see if he could get rod-shaped bacterial cells to grow into cubes. The technology already existed: previous studies ...

Our understanding of bacterial cell shape has taken steps forward with the recent discovery of cytoskeletal elements such as cell-shape determinants, but there is still much to learn about how ...

the cell wall. “Imagine that the wall is like the bacteria wearing a high-vis jacket,” explains lead author, Dr Katarzyna Mickiewicz. “This gives them a regular shape, for example a rod or a ...

In this study, scientists used a molecular tool called an inducible promoter, dialing down the presence of the OpgH protein in Caulobacter to observe the effects on the shape of the bacteria cell ...

The bacterial cell wall is already a major target for antibiotics. The research is published in the journal Science. Even single cells have to maintain their shape: In higher organisms ...

Almost all bacteria owe their structure to an ... into continuous helical structures. Even single cells have to maintain their shape: In higher organisms, the supporting structures of the ...

Now researchers have shown that bacteria can change their shape to avoid antibiotics. While this is not a new finding, the researchers have found that by increasing the width of their cells, bacteria ...

The team also found that a bacterial cell-wall-modifying gene has unique features that enable the bacteria to sculpt its own distinctive shape. The researchers previously discovered how the ...

“This research gives us an important foundation for understanding how to affect bacterial-cell arrangement and assess how to make them more susceptible to antibiotics.” The new study, published in the ...

coli bacterial cells treated with gentamicin sulfate, a common antibiotic deadly to the bacteria on Earth, engaged in shape shifting behavior that helped them survive. The cultured bacteria that ...

Once the cell envelope loses its shape, all of the bacteria eventually burst open and die, Goley says. "We established a ...