Yale team captures images of pathogens’ tiny ‘syringes’

Salmonella

The nano-syringe, called Type III protein secretion machine, features an injection point at one end and a sort of staging area at the bottom, where proteins are selected and sorted for delivery into target cells.

“The device is like a stinger and injects ready-made bacterial proteins into mammalian cells to commandeer them for the benefit of the pathogen,” said Jorge Galan, the Lucille P. Markey Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and co-senior author of the paper.

Knowledge of the structure could help researchers devise new anti-infective strategies  against a variety of bacterial pathogens such as Salmonella, Pseudomonas, Escherichia coli, Yersinia pestis, and Chlamydia. The research was published March 9 in the journal Cell.