TWiM welcomes new host Petra, and explains how a small protein helps ensure that E. coli utilizes a preferred carbon source, and a screening strategy to identify inhibitors of the type IV secretion system that is essential for virulence of a variety of bacterial pathogens.

The TWiM team explores how delivery of an enzyme into competitor cells leads to synthesis of (p)ppApp, depletion of ATP, deregulation of metabolic pathways, and cell death, and a refinement of our typical view of bacterial lag phase as a period of nonreplication.