Dynamic microfluidic single-cell screening identifies pheno-tuning compounds to potentiate tuberculosis therapy.

Drug-recalcitrant infections are a leading global-health concern. Bacterial cells benefit from phenotypic variation, which can suggest effective antimicrobial strategies. However, probing phenotypic variation entails spatiotemporal analysis of individual cells that is technically challenging, and hard to integrate into drug discovery.

The vaccinia chondroitin sulfate binding protein drives host membrane curvature to facilitate fusion.

Cellular attachment of viruses determines their cell tropism and species specificity. For entry, vaccinia, the prototypic poxvirus, relies on four binding proteins and an eleven-protein entry fusion complex. The contribution of the individual virus binding proteins to virion binding orientation and membrane fusion is unclear.