Bacterias Marching To War!

Today I'd like to talk a bit about game of thrones. But not the HBO series we have all (ok, almost all) come to love but a different game of thrones. One where the protagonists aren't humans, dragons, white walkers and children of the forest but tiny itsy bitsy bacterias. 

If you thought only humans engage in constant warfare then think again. Wherever you look in nature there is death and bloodshed and that includes the microscopic world! But although we already knew much about the weapons (e.g. toxins) used during their battles, up to now we knew very little about their overall approach to conflict, like tactics and strategy. 

Now, a study published in Current Biology by researchers at the University of Oxford comes to shed light into their battle tactics and surprisingly reveals that these guys are much more sophisticated than many would give them credit.

The team studied several strains of Escherichia coli as they fought to the death against each other. Each strain comes with a unique set of antibacterial weapons like antibiotics, bacteriocins, and other types of toxins. And by engineering the strains to produce a fluorescent-green color, the team was able to take a closer look in their tiny hand to hand battles.

The findings were quite interesting! Turns out some strains are really, really aggressive while others take a more passive approach. Furthermore, the study showed that often colonies will respond as a whole to a threat. For example, when under attack the bacterias on the edge of the colony alarm the ones next to them and those the ones next to them making the whole colony go into battle mode.

This boring photo actually shows a battle of not so epic proportions between two colonies colonies fightingon solid media. Their weapon of choice are toxins. Upon detecting an attack from the red strain, cells of the green team in the border told the rest of their friends, resulting in a  massive collective attack against the red team. Green colour indicates toxin production. (credit)

While these types of behavior  (e.g. launching a co-ordinated attack) are well-documented in animals, the authors of the study say this is the first time something like this is documented in bacteria and even compare bacteria to social insects:

"Our research shows that what appear to be simple organisms can function in a very sophisticated manner. Their behaviour is more complex than we have previously given them credit for. Much like social insects, such as honey bees and wasps and social animals like birds and mammals who use alarm calls, when under predation, they are capable of generating a coordinated attack" , said Professor Kevin Foster, senior author on the work and Professor of Evolutionary Biology in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford.Possible Implications

Implications

Ok, all these are definitely cool but does this research actually have any use other than satisfying our curiosity? The answer is a big fat yes.

As you might know, the human body provides housing to all kinds of bacteria. Some are good, some are bad and some.. well we have no fucking idea! Fun Tip: The ratio of human cells to non-human cells is 1:3, with some estimates taking this number up to 1:10. In a way, our human body isn't that humane!

This also means that our bodies are constant battlegrounds for the bacterias living inside us and a better understanding of these wars could provide us insight on how they affect our health:  

"We know from other studies that toxins are important for whether or not a particular strain will establish in a community. But understanding how bacteria release toxins and out-compete others is very important for understanding the spread of infection." said Foster. 

I highly suggest you to have a good look in the paper (first link in the refs) if you want to learn more about this study. Personally, I found it a fun and interesting read :)

I'd like to close today with two videos I saw this morning and made my heart melt. Good to know there are still good humans out there:

See ya tomorrow, and steem on!

 References

• Bacteria Use Collective Behavior to Generate Diverse Combat Strategies
• Sciencedaily