Newly discovered iron storage ‘ferrosomes’ inside the bacterium C. diff — the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections — are important for infection in an animal model and could offer new targets for antibacterial drugs. They also represent a rare demonstration of a membrane-bound structure inside a pathogenic bacterium, upsetting the biological dogma that bacteria do not contain organelles.
Newly discovered iron storage ‘ferrosomes’ inside the bacterium C. diff — the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections — are important for infection in an animal model and could offer new targets for antibacterial drugs. They also represent a rare demonstration of a membrane-bound structure inside a pathogenic bacterium, upsetting the biological dogma that bacteria do not contain organelles. Newly discovered iron storage ‘ferrosomes’ inside the bacterium C. diff — the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections — are important for infection in an animal model and could offer new targets for antibacterial drugs. They also represent a rare demonstration of a membrane-bound structure inside a pathogenic bacterium, upsetting the biological dogma that bacteria do not contain organelles.