Manipulating Way Bacteria Talk Leads to Unprecedented Level of Control Over Bacterial Communities
COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Jan. 3, 2011 – By manipulating the way bacteria “talk” to each other, researchers at Texas A&M University have achieved an unprecedented degree of control over the formation and dispersal of biofilms – a finding with potentially significant health and industrial applications, particularly to bioreactor technology.
Working with E. coli bacteria, Professor Thomas K. Wood and Associate Professor Arul Jayaraman of the university’s Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering have employed specific signals sent and received between bacteria to trigger the dispersal of biofilm. Their findings appear online in the January 3 edition of “Nature Communications.
Good news for applied bioreactor systems, such as waste - treatment plants and pharmaceuticals, where strict control and special condtions are required to obtain excellent yields on a variety of products, and good conversions for an optimum substrate degradation.
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