Microbes possess chemical memory
2018; American Chemical Society; Volume: 96; Issue: 14 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1021/cen-09614-scicon10
ISSN2474-7408
Autores Tópico(s)Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
ResumoThey say elephants never forget, but microbes may have them beat. A new study suggests bacteria have a chemical memory of sorts that they pass on to descendants, aiding the entire colony in forming biofilms, the tenacious stuff that befouls hospital catheters and resists antibiotic treatment (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2018, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1720071115). Gerard C. L. Wong of UCLA and colleagues observed Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which forms lethal biofilm infections in people with cystic fibrosis, as the microbes interacted with the surface of a flow cell. Multiple teams' work has shown that when bacteria sense a surface, they encode that knowledge of surface exposure chemically in the molecule cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP, shown). Wong's team noticed a rhythmic rise and fall of cAMP levels in the bacteria, which was linked to activity of appendages that bacteria use to attach to surfaces. The team "was floored," Wong says, to see that
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