In recent years, molecular microbiology has emerged as a top, cutting-edge biological discipline, thanks to the multi-disciplinary and integrative approaches taken by investigators seeking to understand the intricacies of the microbial world and how it affects human health and the biosphere. In Bacterial Cell Surfaces: Methods and Protocols, recent advances in structural biology, proteomics, and imaging techniques, together with the traditional biochemical and genetic approaches, are provided in order to present an exciting look into the structure, function, and regulation of the...

This book examines the channels and pores that belong to an eclectic and ubiquitous class of unconventionaland arguably, sometimes strangepore-forming molecules, which fulfill fundamental roles in various organisms. These non-canonical channels may take on various and sometimes complex architectures, such as large beta-barrels or lipid-containing pores and may originate from bacteria, viruses or intracellular organelles. For some of them, the physiologically relevant substrate may indeed be ions; for others, it consists of folded polypeptides. Some are released by cells in a soluble form...