Watch Bonnie Brassler as she talks about bacterial communication and her work with bioluminescent bacteria. Dr. Brassler was named the North American Laureate for the 2012 L'Oreal/UNESCO awards.
What is a quorum?
How do bacteria know a quorum has been reached?
What did you learn that was new to you?
What else would you like to know?
1.What is a quorum?
ReplyDeleteGroup of bacteria that are all producing a chemical "vote" or molecule.
2.How do bacteria know a quorum has been reached?
Bacteria talk to each other through chemical words, and recognize those words, then turn "on" the group behaviors that are only successful when all the cells participate in unison.
3.What did you learn that was new to you?
We humans are made up of 1 trillion human cells and 10 trillion bacterial cells; we are mostly bacteria!
Bacteria educate your immune system to keep bad microbes out.
Bacteria control pathogenicity with quorum sensing. And the chemicals a intra-specie specific.
Bacteria can count of it's own kind and our cells as well.
4.What else would you like to know?
How do bacteria count all of it's non-self cells? Do they just recognize that it is a non-self cell or is it more specific and they are able to identify the type of cell in order to target it for resources, etc.?
Christina P.