In the Harvard Medical Research department, the lab of John Mekalanos is investigating the shapes of infectious bacteria as well as bacteriophages, a form of bacterial virus, and is finding similar needle-like structures in both. The syringe-like feature lends virulence to several infectious bacteria including cholera, and appears to be similar to a tail like feature found in the bacteriophages, which indicates that the two machines may have a similar ancestor in evolution.
Mekalanos' team used bioinformatics to predict the atomic structure of a protein, used inputting of amino acid sequences as well as analysing already discovered sequences to predict the nature of the input sequences, thereby predicting the shape and fold of the protein molecules. This was done to draw better comparisons between the shape of the two; the genetic codes for the proteins the bacteriophages and infectious bacteria have very little in common, however Mekalanos' team believes it is the structure and shape the protein molecules which form the 'needles' conform to.
The results revealed the structures to be near identical, and this is an advance in genetics as it was also discovered that the tip of the 'needle' found in the cholera bacteria has a poison end that can kill human cells. Furthermore, the study of these syringe-like structures and the relationship between the phages and the bacterium could be intrinsic to the development of new drugs designed to inhibit the function of the structures.
References: Harvard Medical School, "Microbiology," 2009, http://focus.med.harvard.edu/2009/032009/microbiology.shtml
"Cholera bacteria" image, http://traumwerk.stanford.edu/archaeolog/767px-Cholera_bacteria_SEM.jpg
"Bacteriophage Cartoon" image, http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/Images/BacteriophageCartoon.jpg
