Ultrastructural insights into the microsporidian infection apparatus reveal the kinetics and morphological transitions of polar tube and cargo during host cell invasion

Microsporidia utilize the polar tube to transport their infectious sporoplasm from the spore to the host for infection. These authors characterize the ultrastructure and composition of the polar tube to identify different states of the tube wall, visualize transported cargo, and discover uniquely arranged ribosomes along the thin tube wall providing new insights into ribosome regulation and transport.