Staphylococcus aureus divides along sequential orthogonal planes, but the function of this geometry has remained unclear. Ramos-León et al. show that orthogonal division promotes uniform deployment of...

Brogan and Rudner report the identification of a microbial autoproteolytic domain that is structurally homologous to the GAIN domain of eukaryotic adhesion GPCRs. Rather than participating in transmem...

In homologous recombination, DNA repair depends on recombinase filaments finding homologous templates on chromosomes whose topology is continually remodeled by replication and transcription. How dynam...

A specific isoform of PBP1b functions independently of the activator protein, LpoB, to drive generation of a wedge-like peptidoglycan structure that strengthens the division site in Escherichia coli.

The cell wall peptidoglycan (PG) protects virtually all bacteria from osmotic lysis and specifies cell shape. Synthesis of this exoskeleton is carr...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

An immunity-like system functions as a lysis control hub to promote gene transfer agent particle release from host bacterial cells, suggesting that bacterial immune systems may be co-opted to promote ...

How good is Bacillus subtilis as a model for the spore-forming pathogen Bacillus anthracis? Using high throughput genetics to identify B. anthracis sporulation genes and cytological analysis of the mu...

How good is Bacillus subtilis as a model for the spore-forming pathogen Bacillus anthracis? Using high throughput genetics to identify B. anthracis sporulation genes and cytological analysis of the mu...

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) drive virtually all biological processes, yet most PPIs have not been identified and even more remain structurally unresolved. We developed a two-step computational...

Koo et al. apply genome-scale double-CRISPRi to map cell envelope gene interactions in Bacillus subtilis, revealing >1,000 genetic interactions and uncovering gene networks in envelope biogenesis and ...

Gene redundancy complicates systematic characterization of gene function as single-gene deletions may not produce discernible phenotypes. We report dual transposon sequencing (dual Tn-seq), a platform...

Outer membrane attachment to peptidoglycan enables periplasmic pressure to build up and counter cytoplasmic turgor pressure, preventing lysis during osmotic challenges in Escherichia coli.

Brogan et al. uncover a signalling pathway in which levels of the nucleotide second messenger c-di-AMP increase in response to defects in cell wall synthesis. This regulatory pathway decreases turgor ...

Brogan et al. uncover a signalling pathway in which levels of the nucleotide second messenger c-di-AMP increase in response to defects in cell wall synthesis. This regulatory pathway decreases turgor ...

The first step of cell division is deforming the planar cell membrane inward towards the cytoplasm. As deforming membranes is energetically costly, biology has developed various protein systems to acc...

Schmid and Walter train a classifier that discerns functionally relevant structure predictions in proteome-wide protein-protein interaction (PPI) screens using AlphaFold-Multimer, and they use this co...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...