Knowing how bacteria take out trash could lead to new antibiotics
Friday, September 5, 2014 - 00:30
in Biology & Nature
A team of scientists has reconstructed how bacteria tightly control their growth and division, the cell cycle, by destroying specific proteins through regulated protein degradation. All organisms use controlled protein degradation to alter cell behavior in response to changing environment. A process as reliable and stable as cell division also has to be flexible, to allow the organism to grow and respond. But little has been known about the molecular mechanics of how this works.