Periodic Reporting for period 4 - MultiLevelLandscape (Multilevel Selection for Specificity and Divergence in Bacteria)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-09-01 al 2023-02-28
Studying bacterial communication has both direct benefit for society, as many bacteria utilize it to control their virulence. It also provides a general avenue for our basic understanding of the evolution of complex social traits in a relatively simple and experimentally amenable model system.
The aims of the grant where to:
1. Understand the scope of molecular diversity of a model bacterial communication system. This is to be done using advanced molecular screening techniques and high-throughput sequencing.
2. Understand the impact of ecology on selection on multiple scales. Especially understanding the effect of spatial organization within a community and horizontal transfer.
3. Understanding the molecular paths which allow diversification of communication system in the above mentioned ecologies.
1. We have shown that bacteria can communicate on very different scales - some communication systems allow large bacterial communities to interact over ranges of hundreds of microns (allowing communication between thousands of cells and more), while other systems are designed for "personal" communication between near-neighbors only (a scale of ~10 cells). We were able to show the difference between wide-range and local communication systems and to show specific functions that need to utilize one of the types and not the other.
2. We have significantly extended the role communication can plays in interaction between parasitic elements and viruses that infect bacteria. Specifically, we have shown that virus that infect bacteria can communicate with each other (in different bacteria) to determine whether they want to switch from a dormant state to a more aggressive state where they can infect other bacteria. We also showed that bacterial parasites can manipulate the host as part of their infection cycle and that communication contribute to the decision whether to perform the manipulation or not.