Balding Bacteria (IMAGE)
Caption
Bacteria that cause many urinary tract infections are normally coated in fine hairlike structures known as pili (top), but researchers have been developing new drugs that leave the bacteria bald and incapable of causing infections (bottom). The schematic in the center (not to scale) shows how a drug molecule (in the circle) blocks the activity of a chaperone protein that helps assemble the pili.
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