About the Bacterial membrane on Bacterialworld

How your immune system battles harmful bacteria every day

Your immune system is constantly patrolling your body, ensuring that it stays clean and free of disease. Every single day, every hour, every minute, pathogens are pouring in, attempting to call your body their home and cause disease. But your immune system has specialised drones who bring the fight directly to the intruders. These drones are the so-called complement system. They keep bacterial pathogens at bay to ensure that we stay healthy.

Creating the colours of the rainbow: Bacteria and the vibrant world of pigments

Our world as well as the bacterial world are full of vibrant colours. These colours exist thanks to biopigments; molecules able to capture light and reflect the corresponding colour. Many organisms, as well as bacteria, learned to use biopigments to harvest energy from sunlight, fight foes and adapt to new and challenging environments. Read on to learn what makes the bacterial world so colourful and why biopigments are the Earth’s life savers.

Even at the dark and cold bottom of the sea, microbes flourish

Microbes are everywhere. And some have superpowers that allow them to grow in extremely challenging and harsh environments. Especially at the dark and cold bottom of the sea, extremophiles flourish since they interact with other microbes and eat pollutants and contaminants. Interestingly, their microbial activities can also impact our global climate.

How bacteria gain energy from cellular respiration to fuel life

To gain energy, all organisms – including bacteria – need to break molecules apart to get their electrons. In bacteria, this process is called bacterial respiration. Here, we will look at where this energy is stored, what bacteria do with both the electrons and energy and how we use bacterial respiration for our own advantages.

Comic of the different shapes of bacteria

Looking fabulous: Why bacteria need to stay in shape too

For a long time, bacteria were classified according to their shapes. With new technologies, we learned that the bacterial shapes help them survive in their environments and face harsh conditions. Spheres, rods, stars and screws: Learn about the different bacterial shapes.

Why bacteria divide into two and grow with the help of a strong ring

Bacteria divide by measuring their middle and forming a ring. They then extend their cells while the ring tightens. Like this, two daughter cells grow out of one mother cell. However, the daughter cells do not always look the same…

Neisseria gonorrhoeae uses their bacterial pili to attach to human gut cells.

About twitching bacteria and their pili

Some bacteria have special hair-like structures to connect to surfaces or other organisms. These bacterial pili help them move along that surface or pull themselves closer to a prey or host. Read about why bacteria need those pili when they are out hunting or infecting us.

Bacteria use capsules as micro-invisibility cloaks

When bacteria enter the human body, they are welcomed by our immune system that is ready to fight them off. However, some bacteria can put on invisibility cloaks that help them hide from the immune system. Thanks to this sugar coat – the so-called bacterial capsule – bacteria can sneak into our bodies, infect us and make us sick.

How bacteria fight off viruses

Bacteria are constantly attacked by other microbes like viruses. But also bacteria developed mechanisms that make them immune to viral intruders. Read on to find out how bacteria fight off viruses to protect themselves and the whole bacterial community.

A bacterial green solution for electronic waste: microbial nanowires

As a solution to our electronic waste problem, yet again bacteria come to the rescue! They can produce nanowires that one day we could use in our electronic devices. Plus, they are green and biodegradable!

Bacteria use the type 6 secretion system (T6SS) to kill other bacteria with a crossbow and arrow.

Bacteria fire powerful and lethal arrows to kill their competitors

When bacteria fight competitors with their type 6 secretion system nanoweapons, they shoot deadly arrows. These arrows are made of specific parts that interact with each other in unique ways for each arrow. Here, we will look at these different parts: the tip, the spike and the toxin.

Bacteria destroy proteins to understand the environment

For a bacterium to understand what is going on in the environment, it needs some sophisticated mechanisms. One of these includes destroying proteins. Here, we will look at why bacteria destroy proteins and how it helps them to survive.

There are many different ways of how bacteria can transport drugs within the human body.

Of microbots and bacterial ghosts – How bacteria could transport drugs within our bodies

To overcome the medical problem of how drugs can reach a specific target within the body, researchers try to use new approaches. These are often based on bacteria or their products. Here, we will explore drug transport mechanisms for which we could use bacteria and their amazing superpowers.

Sporulation in Bacillus subtilis: A strategy for bacterial hibernation

When bacteria run out of nutrients, they start a process called sporulation to preserve their genetic material.
This article explores what a bacterial spore is and looks at the details of the sporulation process.

Bacteria use tunnels, ferries and bridges to send lipids to the outer membrane to grow them.

How do bacteria grow their membranes?

When a bacterial cell grows, it needs to increase both the cell content and the cell envelope. To grow their outer membranes, bacteria transport lipids with ferries, bridges and tunnels from one side to the other. These transport means allow the whole bacterium to expand and thrive.

Chromombacterium transports violacein within outer membrane vesicles to kill other bacteria

Bacteria firing toxic bubbles

Bacteria can form outer membrane vesicles and fill them with antibiotics. They then send these toxic bubbles off to kill competing bacteria.

The one-component system senses a signal and translates it by binding to DNA.

How bacteria sense and respond to the environment

Bacteria use one-component systems and two-component systems to sense their environment and adapt to changing conditions.

Whenever a bacterium delivers a toxin into a prey bacterium, it wants to hurt it real bad. This means, that a toxin generally targets any of the essential components of the prey bacterium to make sure there is no chance of survival.

The bacterial armoury

Bacteria developed lethal killing machines to deliver toxins into other organisms. These toxic bullets have different functions to break up essential components of the prey. Independent on what the target of the toxin is, the prey surely will not come out happy after that!

Cable bacteria – unusual bacteria conduct electricity

Cable bacteria are long chains of bacteria that transport electrons within this chain. In this fascinating bacterial cable, these bacteria then conduct electricity.

Haem binds at the outside of a bacterium and is transported inside by a barrel like transporter

Thanks to iron, bacteria know where they are

Bacteria can sense the iron concentration of their environment thanks to special iron transporters, of which they produce multiple.

Bacterial membrane