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Cell biology: Bacteria's new bones

Nature volume 451, pages 124–126 (2008)Cite this article

Long dismissed as featureless, disorganized sacks, bacteria are now revealing a multitude of elegant internal structures. Ewen Callaway investigates a new field in cell biology.

Nearly a decade ago Jeff Errington, a microbiologist at Newcastle University in England, was toying with a strange bacterial protein known as MreB. Take it away from microbes, and they lose their characteristic cylindrical shape. The protein's obvious role in structure and even its sequence suggested a shared ancestry with actin, a protein that produces vast, fibrous networks in complex cells, forming the framework of their internal structure, or cytoskeleton. But no one had ever seen MreB in action under the microscope until Errington found just the right combination of fluorescent labels and fixatives.

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References

  1. Jones, L. J. F., Carballido-López, R. & Errington, J. Cell 104, 913?922 (2001).

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  2. Komeili, A., Li, Z., Newman, D. K. & Jensen, G. J. Science 311, 242?245 (2006).

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Authors
  1. Ewen Callaway
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Ewen Callaway recently completed an internship at Nature's Washington DC office.

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Newcastle University's Center for Bacterial Cell Biology

Dyche Mullins' lab

American Society for Cell Biology

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Callaway, E. Cell biology: Bacteria's new bones. Nature 451, 124–126 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/451124a

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