Chopping and changing in the microbial world: How mycoplasmas – the simplest bacterial pathogens – stay alive

Pathogenic bacteria have evolved a variety of mechanisms to avoid being killed by the immune systems of the humans and animals they invade. Among the most sophisticated is that practiced by mycoplasmas, which regularly change their surface proteins to confuse the immune system. Recent work has revealed surprising new details of the way they do so and at the same time raised important evolutionary questions.

Read the whole article on Science Daily

More from Science Daily