Viruses attack nearly every living organism on Earth. To do so, they rely on highly specialized proteins that recognize and bind to receptors on the surface of target cells, a molecular arms race that ...

One of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet is closer than you think—right inside your mouth. Your mouth is a thriving ecosystem of more than 500 different species of bacteria living in distinct, ...

Cyanobacteria—ancient microbes that oxygenated Earth and made complex life possible—are still revealing surprises billions of years later. Scientists have now discovered that a molecular system once ...

Researchers have revealed how bacteria precisely control the genes that trigger cell division. The study shows that the MraZ protein, which normally forms a donut-shaped structure, must bend and ...

Phenotypic heterogeneity, a feature of both bacteria and eukaryotic cells, arises from inherent cell-to-cell variability. In eukaryotes, single-cell RNA sequencing has led to an explosion in ...

The filamentous bacterium Corynebacterium matruchotii splitting into multiple cells at once, a rare kind of cell division called multiple fission. C. matruchotii is one of the most common bacteria ...