#quorum sensing

[ahhvernin]

What are the Eyes in Stray?

I have a theory to what they are. In microbiology bacteria can be free roaming, like the smaller zurks in the game, but bacteria often will form biofilm, a collective of many individual bacteria to form a mass, a film that usually clings to something, and grows. The most interesting thing about biofilms is quorum sensing, in which a biofilm, which can have a population of varying bacteria, mold, fungi, protozoa and viruses etc. together, actually sets up a self regulating system. Quorum Sensing allows the mass to control genes. Some are turned on or off, to do various different functions for the collective biofilm, such as defense, growth, virulence, bioluminescence, chemical secretion and many more other potential functions. And on top of it, biofilms are much more harder to kill than individual free swimming bacteria, they often have much higher resistance to the typical physical, chemical and radiation factors that could damage or kill them. Dental plaque is an example of biofilm, the fresh stuff is easy to brush away, the older stuff is more mineralized and becomes hard and difficult to remove. So....The eyes in the sewers could very well be a "biofilm". The makeup of the biofilm could be non roaming zurks, but also human genetics and organic material. The dead can provide growth resources but also genetics to various different resistances and growth hormones and regulators. If this biofilm was able to engulf live humans, human consciousness or intelligence, could possibly also be added to this large organism, due to the functioning neurological pathways in a live human compared to a dead one, the functioning bio pathway could have been rapidly integrated. Think how fungi can hijack an ant's living body to do weird behavior and climb to a point where it then dies and the fungi sporulates. The biofilm could perhaps even enhance whatever body systems and genetics from humans with any companion and computer operating systems as well. So we have the rapidly evolving, growing and virulent zurks, engulfing other organisms, and organic matter like many bacteria do, breaking them down and taking what materials they need to perform typical growth, but also randomly conserving parts that may become beneficial to them and it replicates, grows, and mutates forever more as time goes on. The eyes look like that of an animal, with eye lids and round pupil, it follows and have rather many expressions, and gives off a look of curiosity, and observing nature. This is a feature of animals, especially humans, but they also have a defensive response to be able to call in the free roaming zurks. So you have a higher intelligence behavior, paired with the rapid hive mind flooding to a stimuli, like microphages onto on a foreign body. The sewer eyes has to be a massive biofilm of zurk, human and whatever other micro or macro organisms that were dumped into the sewers.

[synaps]

Very sceptical of that being a real tooth, but as a matter of fact colonies of oral bacteria do have the same level of civilsation as the Romans in many aspects: aqueducts, sewers, trade, mutual protection, communication and possibility to organise a coordinated response to outside threats...

[currentsinbiology]

Bacteria Use Brainlike Bursts of Electricity to Communicate

Bacteria have an unfortunate — and inaccurate — public image as isolated cells twiddling about on microscope slides. The more that scientists learn about bacteria, however, the more they see that this hermitlike reputation is deeply misleading, like trying to understand human behavior without referring to cities, laws or speech. “People were treating bacteria as … solitary organisms that live by themselves,” said Gürol Süel, a biophysicist at the University of California, San Diego. “In fact, most bacteria in nature appear to reside in very dense communities.”

The preferred form of community for bacteria seems to be the biofilm. On teeth, on pipes, on rocks and in the ocean, microbes glom together by the billions and build sticky organic superstructures around themselves. In these films, bacteria can divide labor: Exterior cells may fend off threats, while interior cells produce food. And like humans, who have succeeded in large part by cooperating with each other, bacteria thrive in communities. Antibiotics that easily dispatch free-swimming cells often prove useless against the same types of cells when they’ve hunkered down in a film.

As in all communities, cohabiting bacteria need ways to exchange messages. Biologists have known for decades that bacteria can use chemical cues to coordinate their behavior. The best-known example, elucidated by Bonnie Bassler of Princeton University and others, is quorum sensing, a process by which bacteria extrude signaling molecules until a high enough concentration triggers cells to form a biofilm or initiate some other collective behavior.

But Süel and other scientists are now finding that bacteria in biofilms can also talk to one another electrically. Biofilms appear to use electrically charged particles to organize and synchronize activities across large expanses. This electrical exchange has proved so powerful that biofilms even use it to recruit new bacteria from their surroundings, and to negotiate with neighboring biofilms for their mutual well-being.

[kenyatta]

Bacteria were for a long time believed to exist as individual cells that sought primarily to find nutrients and multiply. The discovery of intercellular communication among bacteria has led to the realization that bacteria are capable of coordinated activity that was once believed to be restricted to multicellular organisms. The capacity to behave collectively as a group has obvious advantages, for example, the ability to migrate to a more suitable environment/better nutrient supply and to adopt new modes of growth, such as sporulation or biofilm formation, which may afford protection from deleterious environments. The “language” used for this intercellular communication is based on small, self-generated signal molecules called autoinducers. Through the use of autoinducers, bacteria can regulate their behavior according to population density. The phenomenon of quorum sensing, or cell-to-cell communication, relies on the principle that when a single bacterium releases autoinducers (AIs) into the environment, their concentration is too low to be detected. However, when sufficient bacteria are present, autoinducer concentrations reach a threshold level that allows the bacteria to sense a critical cell mass and, in response, to activate or repress target genes. Most of the bacteria thus far identified that utilize quorum-sensing systems are associated in some way with plants or animals. The nature of these relationships can be either amicable, as characterized by symbiotic bacteria, or adversarial, as seen with pathogenic bacteria. There are numerous bacteria that have components of a quorum-sensing system for which the phenotype regulated remains an enigma. Similarly, there are bacteria known to regulate a specific phenotype via quorum sensing for which one or more of the regulatory components have thus far eluded identification. In this review we give examples of pathogenic relationships, focusing on organisms for which many of the facets of their quorum-sensing systems have been elucidated.

h/t @xuhulk

[captaindomy]

Scopus article: Algal–Bacterial Interactions: Mechanisms, Ecological Significance, and Biotechnological Implications

by  Domenico Prisa 1,*, Aristidis Matsoukis 2,*, Aftab Jamal 3, Damiano Spagnuolo 4 and Lorenzo Maria Ruggeri 5 1Research Centre for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops, Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA), Via Dei Fiori 8, 51012 Pescia, Italy 2Department of Crop Science, School of Plant Sciences, Agricultural University of Athens, 75 Iera Odos St., 11855…

Scopus article: Algal–Bacterial Interactions: Mechanisms, Ecological Significance, and Biotechnological Implications

[strangefacthub]

Bacteria Talk: The Shocking New Way to Control Them

Introduction to Bacteria TalkDiscover what's happening now with Bacteria Talk: New Way to Control Them. Did you know that bacteria can actually talk to each other? Through a process called quorum sensing, bacteria release and detect chemical signals to coordinate group behavior. This phenomenon has led to a new understanding of how to control bacteria, and the implications are mind-blowing.How Bacteria CommunicateBacteria use quorum sensing to communicate with each other, and this process is crucial for their survival. By releasing and detecting chemical signals, bacteria can coordinate their behavior and work together to achieve common goals. For example, bacteria can use quorum sensing to coordinate the production of virulence factors, which are molecules that help them infect and harm their hosts.Here's the crazy thing: bacteria can also use quorum sensing to communicate with other species, including humans. Researchers have discovered that bacteria in the gut can produce signals th...

Read the full article here

[oaresearchpaper]

Resistance mechanisms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and promising strategies to combat antibiotic resistance

Nowadays, antibiotic resistance constitutes one of the world-wide health crisis, food security and development. This review was designed to highlight the resistance mechanisms in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a multi-resistant bacterium, and to propose strategies to combat antibiotic resistance. P. aeruginosa is a Gram-negative bacillus, strict aerobic and non-fermentative. It is involved in opportunistic infections, mainly in a nosocomial context. This bacterium is characterized by a natural resistance to many antibiotics, limiting the number of effective therapies. Acquisition of resistance to β-lactams is common and results from mutations leading to overproduction of chromosomal cephalosporinase (class C β-lactamase), overexpression of active efflux systems, decreased membrane permeability and/or of the acquisition of transferable genes. Resistance to aminoglycosides is common and most often the result of the acquisition of genes for modifying enzymes. Resistance to fluoroquinolones is frequently linked to mutations in genes encoding deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) gyrase. Overexpression of efflux pumps also contributes to resistance to aminoglycosides and fluoroquinolones. A new molecule, ceftolozane-tazobactam, appears promising, particularly in the treatment of P. aeruginosa infections overproducing the cephalosporinase AmpC. However, multi-resistant or toto-resistant strains are being described more and more frequently throughout the world. The formation of biofilm controlled by the quorum sensing enhances the antibiotic resistance in P. aeruginosa. The increase of the antibiotic resistance in P. aeruginosa is a worrying phenomenon and biologists must be aware. New promising strategies must be developed for combating P. aeruginosa drug resistance.

[farmerstrend]

Harnessing Quorum Sensing: Nature’s Microbial Communication for Smarter Agriculture

Agriculture has always been at the heart of human civilization, driving economies and sustaining communities. As the global population continues to rise and environmental challenges mount, the quest for innovative and sustainable farming solutions has never been more critical. Among the many scientific breakthroughs poised to transform agriculture, quorum sensing—a natural form of microbial…

Harnessing Quorum Sensing: Nature’s Microbial Communication for Smarter Agriculture