Communication Codes - Bacteria And Plants

Scientists from University of California, Davis have discovered a new signal that helps invading bacteria communicate at the same time it helps targeted rice plants coordinate defensive attacks on the disease-causing invaders.

The finding could lead to new methods of combating infection not just in plants, but in humans. 

Pamela Ronald, a professor of plant pathology at the University of California, Davis and the lead researcher on the study says: "Just as invading armies often use coded messages to coordinate attacks on their targets, so single-celled bacteria use biological signals to communicate when they attack plants and animals, Scientists have known this for 20 years, however results from our study reveal a type of bacterial signal that has never been described before."

Up until now, scientists thought that two major groups of bacteria used two distinctly different types of communication codes, Ronald says. However Ax21, the small protein examined in this study, doesn’t fit into either of those previously identified communication codes.

Ax21 is made inside the bacterial cell and processed to generate a shorter signal that is secreted outside the bacterium. This signal tips off other bacteria to assemble themselves into elaborate protective bunkers, called biofilms, which make the bacteria resistant to drying out and antibiotic treatment.

Well this sounds quite amazing. Decoding bacteria signals. 

Read the original study here.