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New research from Shiladitya Banerjee, assistant professor of physics at Carnegie Mellon University, demonstrates how certain types of bacteria can adapt to long-term exposure to antibiotics by changing their shape. The work was published today in the journal Nature Physics.
Adaptation is a fundamental biological process that prompts organisms to modify their traits and behavior to better adapt to their environment, whether it is the famous diversity of finches observed by pioneer biologist Charles Darwin or the many varieties of bacteria that humans coexist with. While antibiotics have long helped people prevent and cure bacterial infections, many species of bacteria have increasingly been able to adapt to resist antibiotic treatment.
Banerjee’s research at Carnegie Mellon and in his previous post at University College London (UCL) focused on the mechanics and physics behind various cellular processes, and a common theme in his work has been that the shape of a cell can have major effects on its reproduction and survival. In collaboration with researchers at the University of Chicago, he decided to look at how exposure to antibiotics affects the growth and morphology of the bacteria Caulobacter crescentus, a commonly used model organism.
“Using single-cell experiments and theoretical modeling, we demonstrate that changes in cell shape act as a feedback strategy to make bacteria more adaptable to surviving antibiotics,” Banerjee said of what he and his collaborators found. .
When exposed to less than lethal doses of the antibiotic chloramphenicol over several generations, the researchers found that the bacteria drastically changed their shape, becoming larger and more curvy.
“These shape changes allow bacteria to overcome the stress of the antibiotics and resume rapid growth,” Banerjee said. The researchers came to this conclusion by developing a theoretical model to show how these physical changes allow bacteria to achieve higher curvature and a lower surface-to-volume ratio, which would allow fewer antibiotic particles to pass through their cells. cell surfaces as they develop.
“This idea is of great importance to human health and will likely stimulate many other molecular studies on the role of the cell form on bacterial growth and resistance to antibiotics,” said Mr. Banerjee.
Reference
Banerjee S, Lo K, Ojkic N, Stephens R, Scherer NF, Dinner AR. Mechanical feedback promotes bacterial adaptation to antibiotics. Physics of nature. Published online January 4, 2021: 1-7. doi: 10.1038 / s41567-020-01079-x
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