Contractile injection systems are nanomachines used by bacteria to puncture target cell membranes, thereby mediating bacterial competition and infection of eukaryotic cells. Two studies shed light on the structural diversity of these molecular spearguns using advanced multiscale imaging techniques.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Change history
10 March 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01102-2
References
Leiman, P. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 4154–4159 (2009).
Vettiger, A. & Basler, M. Cell 167, 99–110 (2016).
Xu, J. et al. Nat. Microbiol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01059-2 (2022).
Weiss, G. et al. Nat. Microbiol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-021-01055-y (2022).
Chen, L. et al. Cell Rep. 29, 511–521 (2019).
Jiang, F. et al. Cell 177, 370–383 (2019).
Desfosses, A. et al. Nat. Microbiol. 4, 1885–1894 (2019).
Zachs, T. et al. eLife 9, e52286 (2020).
Rast, A. et al. Nat. Plants 5, 436–446 (2019).
Huokko, T. et al. Nat. Commun. 12, 3475 (2021).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Righetto, R.D., Engel, B.D. Expanding the arsenal of bacterial spearguns. Nat Microbiol 7, 363–364 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01078-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01078-z