Scientists have made a fascinating discovery that bacteria can form memories that influence their behavior, leading to the development of dangerous infections in humans, such as antibiotic resistance and bacterial swarms. These memories are passed down to future generations through a common chemical element found in bacterial cells.
A team of researchers at The University of Texas at Austin conducted a study and found that E. coli bacteria utilize iron levels to store information about different behaviors. This stored information can then be activated in response to specific stimuli.
The findings of this study, which have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shed light on why bacteria that have previously experienced swarming improve their subsequent swarming performance. Although bacteria lack brains and nervous systems, they can gather information from their environment and store it for future use.
“Bacteria don’t have brains, but they can gather information from their environment, and if they have encountered that environment frequently, they can store that information and quickly access it later for their benefit,” explained Souvik Bhattacharyya, the lead author of the study and a provost early career fellow in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at UT.
2023-11-22 03:41:02
Link from phys.org