{"id":234384,"date":"2026-03-31T23:29:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/targeting-the-tiniest-divide-research-reveals-potential-vulnerability-in-bacterial-reproduction"},"modified":"2026-03-31T23:29:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:29:27","slug":"targeting-the-tiniest-divide-research-reveals-potential-vulnerability-in-bacterial-reproduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/targeting-the-tiniest-divide-research-reveals-potential-vulnerability-in-bacterial-reproduction","title":{"rendered":"Targeting the tiniest divide: Research reveals potential vulnerability in bacterial reproduction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/targeting-the-tiniest-divide-research-reveals-potential-vulnerability-in-bacterial-reproduction.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al study has found a previously unknown mechanism in bacterial reproduction that could be attacked by future antibiotics. Bacteria reproduce by dividing into two: they form a wall, or septum, between the two future cells while remodeling the old cell walls so the so-called \u201cdaughter\u201d cells can separate without bursting. Until now, scientists had believed that once the dividing wall was built, bacteria gradually break down the links between its two sides to allow the cells to separate in a process called cleavage.<\/p>\n<p>However, the new study <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-026-69404-1\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Communications<\/i> shows that bacteria actually strengthen the septum during the final moments of cleavage by a previously undetected mechanism. The research was led by Yves Brun, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology at Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al and holder of the Canada 150 Research Chair in Bacterial Cell Biology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al study has found a previously unknown mechanism in bacterial reproduction that could be attacked by future antibiotics. Bacteria reproduce by dividing into two: they form a wall, or septum, between the two future cells while remodeling the old cell walls so the so-called \u201cdaughter\u201d cells can separate without bursting. Until now, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}