Team’s breakthrough over infections

A BREAKTHROUGH in the understanding of how harmful bacteria cause infections in the body could lead to new treatments for food poisoning and stomach ulcers.

An international team of scientists which included staff from at the University of York studied how germs use corkscrew-like propellers called flagella to escape when trapped in tight spaces.

It could lead to new ways of restricting types of “swimming” germs from causing infections after scientists at York used 3D microscope technology to examine the evolution of bacteria.

Academics from the Institute of Microbiology and Molecular Biology and the Philipps University of Marburg in Germany were also involved in the research project.

Computer simulations were used to examine flagella, which are made up of thousands of protein building blocks arranged in spirals, and to look at how soildwelling bacteria feed, swim and spread.

Previous research found that flagella are connected to the cell structure and rotate in a circular movement, similar to that of a propeller.

The study co-author, Dr Laurence Wilson, from the University of York’s Department of Physics, said: “Species of bacteria such as Campylobacter jejuni, which causes food poisoning, and Helicobacter pylori, which causes stomach ulcers, have been found to maintain multiple components in their flagella.

“This study gives us a better understanding of the physics of bacterial infection, knowledge which could lead to new ways of blocking the transmission of harmful infections in the future.”

The research has been published in the science journal Nature Communications.