Abstract

Several medically important Gram-negative bacterial pathogens inject virulence factors into host cells through a type III secretion system and specialized bacterial chaperones are required for their effective delivery. Recent structural work shows that these chaperones maintain virulence factors in a partially non-globular conformation that is primed for unfolding and translocation through the 'injectisome'.

Author affiliations

1. Laboratory of Structural Microbiology, The Rockefeller University, Box 52, 1230 York Avenue, New York, New York 10021, USA.
2. Section of Microbial Pathogenesis, Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06536, USA.

Correspondence to: C. Erec Stebbins¹ Email: stebbins@rockefeller.edu

Correspondence to: Jorge E. Galán² Email: jorge.galan@yale.edu