The transition of Staphylococcus aureus from commensalism to invasive disease, bacteraemia, is a complex balancing act offsetting offensive and defensive virulence strategies involving the Tca cell wall stress stimulon locus.

Comparisons between lactobacilli bacteria in the small intestine and those evolved in the lab reveal several modes of resistance to toxic fatty acids.

The death of bacterial kin cells releases a danger signal that activates a posttranscriptional response in surviving cells, resulting in the rapid elaboration of interbacterial competition factors.

Chronic bacteriophages are induced by the supplement of polysaccharide in the deep-sea Lentisphaerae strains, and these bacteriophages potentially reprogram host polysaccharide metabolism through the auxiliary metabolic genes.

A new peptidoglycan hydrolase mined from Acinetobacter baumannii proteome by lysin-derived antimicrobial peptide-primed screening strategy undergoes a unique switch between dimer and monomer after heat treatment and protects mice from A. baumannii infection.

Class-A penicillin-binding proteins are dispensable for rod-like cell-shape but essential for mechanical integrity by sensing and repairing cell-wall defects locally, as investigated in the model system Escherichia coli.

Environmental specialization of bacterial cell wall synthases influences intrinsic resistance to cell wall active antibiotics.

Labeling with ¹³C and ¹⁵N in the absence of metabolic engineering enabled the exploration of peptidoglycan metabolism at a very fine level of detail based on kinetic characterization of isotopologues predicted to occur according to known recycling and biosynthesis pathways.

A lytic transglycosylase connects bacterial focal adhesion complexes to the peptidoglycan cell wall and thus transmits proton motive force from the inner membrane to cell surface.

A critical role for bacterial lytic transglycosylases in the clearance of novel, toxic cell wall turnover products that accumulate during vegetative growth is identified through genetic approaches and compositional analysis of solubilized peptidoglycan released from the bacterial cell wall.