Bacteria also communicate through the air

2002/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Mikrobiologia

A group of British scientists have demonstrated the ability of bacteria to communicate through the air. The experiment used colonies of E. coli bacteria that were together but physically separated.

Unilateral colonies were resistant to one antibiotic and the others were not. Scientists were surprised: some bacteria without resistance were able to grow in the middle with antibiotics.

How did they get the resistance to grow in that environment? Bacteria had no other way to get them through contiguous resistance colonies, and the only means of communication between them was air.

Scientists have concluded that bacteria have the ability to communicate through the air. However, they have determined that communication occurs at very small distances. However, they still do not know what chemicals are communicating.