If we can understand how bacteria use signalling systems to cope with the drugs we’re throwing at them, that should help us find new ways to get around their defences
- Hannah Gaimster
At a time when there is growing concern about rising antibiotic resistance, the results – published in the journal PLOS ONE – could lead to new ways of combatting dangerous bacteria.
For many years, people thought bacteria worked by simply consuming resources until they ran out, and then entering a stationary, non-growing, phase. Working with physicists from the Cavendish Laboratory, Hannah Gaimster and David Summers from the Department of Genetics showed that as resources decline, bacteria switch to austerity mode, individually deciding to consume less until conditions improve.
Summers and Gaimster identified this behaviour by studying indole – the chemical behind the bad smell in babies’ nappies (and also used as an ingredient in perfumes) – a key signalling molecule in bacteria.
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Image: Fluorescent E. coli turn green as they produce indole
Credit: Avelino Javer and Pietro Cicuta, Cavendish laboratory, University of Cambridge
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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