Watch me move it, move it: Gliding structure in Mycoplasma mobile revealed

In collaboration with Kanazawa University, researchers from Osaka City University used high-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM) to visualize at the nanometer level the movement of individual particles within the parasitic bacterium Mycoplasma mobile. After confirming the outline on the surface of the cell structure in an immobilized state with previous data gathered from electron microscopy, the team succeeded in visualizing the real-time movements of the internal structure by scanning the outside of the cell with HS-AFM.