We were then able to isolate this vesicle from the dead prey, which is a first in this field. Professor Liz Sockett explained: 'The vesicle creates a kind of airlock or keyhole allowing Bdellovibrio entry into the prey cell. The breakthrough came when Sam Greenwood an undergraduate student, and Asmaa Al-Bayati, a PhD student in the Sockett lab, discovered that the Bdellovibrio predators lay down a sturdy vesicle (a 'pinched-off' part of the predator cell envelope) when invading their prey. Professor Lovering and Professor Liz Sockett, from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham, have been collaborating in this field for almost 15 years. The question that had stumped scientists was 'how do these cells make a firm attachment when we know how varied their bacterial targets are?''

Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Birmingham, Andrew Lovering said: 'Since the 1960s Bdellovibrio bacterivorous has been known to hunt and kill other bacteria by entering the target cells and eating them from the inside before later bursting out.

This discovery may enable scientists to use these predators to target and kill problematic bacteria that cause issues in healthcare, food spoilage and the environment. In a study published today (4 th January) in Nature Microbiology, researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Nottingham have discovered how natural antimicrobial predatory bacteria, called Bdellovibrio bacterivorous, produce fibre-like proteins on their surface to ensnare prey.

Prey vs predator lab