Project

Extracellular capsules constitute the outermost layer of some bacteria and establish the first contact between the cell and its environment. They are major virulence factors involved, amongst other, in antibiotic tolerance and immune escape. Bacterial capsules are also known to mediate unspecific cell-to-cell interactions between and across species and affect population structure and dynamics. Despite the great number of studies characterizing capsule diversity and their role during infection in a few model species, most evolutionary and ecological questions have yet to be adressed. Furthermore, there is no tool to identify and annotate capsule systems across all prokaryotic genomes. We have built such a tool and would like to make it available.