Vesicle release in bacteria
Bacterial speech bubbles : Nature
Bacteria secrete signals to other bacteria of the same species through vesicle packets.
Mashburn and Whiteley describe the unexpected convergence of two seemingly unrelated areas of microbiological research: how bacteria talk to their friends, and how they attack their enemies. The authors studied the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which releases a hydrophobic molecule called the ‘pseudomonas quinolone signal’ (PQS) to send messages to other bacteria of the same species. The surprise is that, rather than being secreted as single molecules, PQS is released in bubble-like ‘vesicles’ that also contain antibacterial agents and probably toxins aimed at host tissue cells as well.
I wonder if this is evolutionarily connected to synaptic vesicles or if this is a case of something like convergent evolution…
September 20th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
Communication, and other things journalists could learn from e.coli
Last week I drove up to interview a University of South Carolina professor on a grant-funded program there that will spend the next four years delving into the chemical pathways of bacterial communication. And this is what you learn from