Bacterial proteases are critical virulence factors that mediate host colonisation, immune evasion and tissue invasion. These enzymes cleave host proteins ranging from structural components of the ...

Rivals or allies—how do bacteria and fungi interact in our bodies? Until now, bacteria on our mucous membranes were primarily considered to be antagonists of fungi, as they can inhibit their growth.

Bacteria use multiple defense mechanisms to survive in the host body. Shigella bacteria that cause colitis disable multiple host defense pathways using three specialized effector proteins, as reported ...

Despite rapid advances in reading the genetic code of living organisms, scientists still face a major challenge today—knowing a gene's sequence does not automatically reveal what it does. Even in ...

Bacteriophages, or phages, viruses that selectively target and infect bacteria, have drawn growing attention for their potential use in a host of biotechnological processes to benefit humankind, from ...

About six years ago, Srivatsan Raman, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his team took a trip to NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Standing a mile away from the ...

A world of microbes resides within the gut of every human being. This vast microbial community, the microbiome, which includes bacteria and viruses, has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to actively ...

Researchers are investigating whether certain viruses known as bacteriophages, or phages, which specifically infect bacteria but not human cells, affect the development of type 1 diabetes in young ...