Assembling nanomachines in bacteria

One of the oldest nanomachines in biology is the

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bacterial flagellum. This apparatus is evolutionary essential, endowing onto bacteria the ability to move. The flagellum shares high similarity with another bacterial structure, the injectisome, which as the name implies is how some bacteria deliver their content to infect a host. A new study by researchers at Osaka University reveals how a specific structure in flagellum and injectisome, the export gate complex, dynamically assembles and how preventing this assembly could make bacteria innocuous. The study can be seen in PLOS Biology.

Associate Professor Tohru Minamino at the Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences has been studying the export gate complex for many years using electron microscopy. His interest in this complex is mainly in engineering new nanomachines, but he has realized the same research could have medical implications.

"There are many structural and functional similarities between the flagellar and injectisome proteins. They could make good targets for inhibiting bacterial infection," he said.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-nanomachines-bacteria.html#jCp