Enter the Pirates by Christoph — Well-known examples of rapacious bacteria are Myxococcus xanthus and the vampires from the Bdellovibrio tribe. Enter the pirates with Captain Aureispira… thx @pilhoferlab.bsky.social for this story. Read more > schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2... #MicroSky - ThreadSky

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stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social • 7 days ago

Enter the Pirates

by Christoph — Well-known examples of rapacious bacteria are Myxococcus xanthus and the vampires from the Bdellovibrio tribe. Enter the pirates with Captain Aureispira…

thx @pilhoferlab.bsky.social for this story.

Read more > https://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2025/02/enter-the-pirates.html

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Comments

merz.bsky.social•6 days ago

Amazing and awesome! What a great summary, Christophe. One minor addition — Katy Forest and used the term "grappling hooks" to describe retractile type 4 pili in 2002, and I doubt that we were the first to apply the term to bacterial adhesion and motility.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11967173/

stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social•6 days ago

you're right, Alex, the use of the term “grappling hook” predates Elio's mentioning them in his piece from 2007. finding out who first used the term is probably as impossible as exploring all its uses among different bacteria and archaea, and its various structures :-)

bnerlich.bsky.social•7 days ago

I like that. A lesson in metaphor use, where playfulness breaks down the walls of dull war metaphors that sometimes hold microbiologists captive (or to quote good old Wittgenstein, 'show the fly the way out of the fly bottle'). What do you think @vdlorenzo.bsky.social

vdlorenzo.bsky.social•7 days ago

I love it! First, a metaphor should be acknowledged as such, without pretending that it is the real thing. And second, piracy is a good one, as the same pirates could at times be evil robbers and at other times respectable merchants … in a context-dependent fashion!

stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social•7 days ago

"...pirates could at times be evil robbers and at other times respectable merchants"
the "frenemy" relationship of 𝘌𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘹𝘭𝘦𝘺𝘪 with 𝘚𝘶𝘭𝘧𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳 D7 comes to mind here. see > https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36691727/

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