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The work is “a landmark in cell surface engineering,” says author It offers “an elegant approach to metabolic introduction of novel molecular entities into bacterial cell walls.”
The researchers’ paper describes unnatural cell wall components with chemically reactive ketone groups that are subsequently used for conjugation of fluorescence probes, but, in principle, the cell walls could be augmented with any chemical structure. “I envision several possible applications.” author says “including vaccine design and probing how peptidoglycan on living bacteria might interact with effectors of the immune system.” Earlier work in author’s lab and elsewhere used a similar strategy to introduce unnatural molecules onto the surface of mammalian cells through incorporation into sialic acid derivatives displayed on the cell surfaces
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