An unprecedented discovery of cell fusion
Wednesday, September 2, 2020 - 11:40
in Biology & Nature
Understanding how bacteria interact is critical to solving growing problems such as antibiotic resistance, in which infectious bacteria form defenses to thwart the medicines used to fight them. Researchers have discovered that bacterial cells from different species can combine into unique hybrid cells by fusing their cell walls and membranes and sharing cellular contents, including proteins and ribonucleic acid (RNA), the molecules which regulate gene expression and control cell metabolism.