New insights in survival strategies of bacteria
Sunday, September 14, 2014 - 12:00
in Biology & Nature
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 biofilm is a bacterial community that is surrounded by a protective slime capsule consisting of sugar chains and "curli". Scientists at VIB and Vrije Universiteit Brussel have for the first time created a detailed three-dimensional image of the pores through which the curli building blocks cross the bacterial cell wall, a crucial step in the formation of the protective slime capsule.