Publications by authors named "Boris Taillefer"
Bacteria use weapons to deliver effectors into target cells. One of these weapons, the type VI secretion system (T6SS), assembles a contractile tail acting as a spring to propel a toxin-loaded needle. Due to its size and mechanism of action, the T6SS was intuitively thought to be energetically costly.
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- Bacteria have evolved various antibacterial strategies to compete for resources, leading to the development of complex laboratory techniques for measuring antibacterial activity that are often time-consuming and costly.
- Current methods typically involve cultivating competing bacteria on selective media, but two new optimized protocols are introduced that are fast and affordable.
- The first method measures bacterial lysis through the release of β-galactosidase from the attacked cells, while the second assesses survival by analyzing the lag time in reaching a specific growth density; together, these methods differentiate between complete cell death, lysis without death, and survival.