Antibiotics May Have New Way to Tear Down Bacterial Walls

Bacteria stay safe within their walls only it these walls are properly built and maintained. And so bacteria are vulnerable to antibiotics that can interfere with the bacterial cell wall’s brick and mortar—large sugar molecules and clusters of amino acids. Bacterial masonry, Harvard scientists report, has an overlooked vulnerability. Specifically, a recently discovered class of wall-building proteins displays a cavity, one that may be targeted by new antibiotics.These proteins—