Pili are short, hair-like structures on the cell surface of prokaryotic cells. They can have a role in movement, but are more often involved in adherence to surfaces, which facilitates infection, and ...

Prokaryotic cells, which include all bacteria and archaea, are ancient, and relatively simple compared to eukaryotic cells, which are found in fungi, plants, and animals. Scientists have long sought ...

Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size. Every organism visible to the ...

As bacteria adapt to hotter temperatures, they speed up their respiration rate and release more carbon, potentially accelerating climate change. As bacteria adapt to hotter temperatures, they speed up ...

New research has revealed that the structure of a bacteriophage, a virus infecting bacteria, resembles that of certain dangerous viruses that infect people. Studying this bacteriophage reveals various ...

This method for directly enriching the 5´ end of primary transcripts enables the determination of transcription start sites at single-base resolution. Coupled with long read sequencing, the method ...

Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for insights into how complex cells evolved. Open a basic biology textbook published decades ago or one ...