Sabotaging bacteria propellers to stop infections
When looking at bacteria, you typically see also flagella: long hairs that protrudes from the bacteria's body. The key function of the flagella is movement – what scientists call 'motility'. The flagella give the bacteria the ability to swim in their environment by rotating like propellers. Bacteria can have a different number of flagella, and flagella are important because there is a clear correlation between motility and infection. Dr Hideyuki Matsunami of the Trans-Membrane Trafficking Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), together with a team of scientists, explored some aspects of the formation of flagella in research that may have implications for contrasting bacterial infections. They published their findings in Scientific Reports.