Kartchner Cave Microbes

            Caves are an extreme environment for any organism to live; there is little sunlight and nutrients plus the temperatures are usually extreme. There is a cave called Kartchner Caverns in southeastern Arizona. The surface environment in Arizona is dry and hot and usually not the most desirable place to make your home if you are a tiny microbe. Recently scientists have discovered microorganisms underground in Kartchner Caverns where the environment is even harsher than on the surface. It is dry and hot underground and there are little nutrients available in the cave. This stunned scientists because they wondered how microbes that rely on organic carbon as an energy source can survive where there is little to munch on. There is no sunlight for them to be photosynthetic microbes but researchers found that the microorganisms relied on water runoff that drips into the cave. This cave is unlike other known caves because there is ten times less carbon entering the Kartchner Caverns.

            This environment seems harsh and unwelcoming for microorganisms but there are many species that call this place home. According to one of the scientists the microorganisms in this cave, “use the energy in nitrogen-containing compounds like ammonia and nitrite to convert carbon dioxide from the air into biomass." This is stunning because they have learned to adapt their energy intake ways in order to fit into the environment. Scientists were able to culture a few of the microorganisms and were amazed with the results because one of the microbes that they grew had only been found three times in history. It is very rare and we know little about it and are curious to know if there are tons more microorganisms that are unknown to us.

            Scientists also discovered that these microorganisms were found in contaminated soils and scientists are now asking the question of whether these microbes could help with environmental remediation. This article had a lot of information about new microbes and what potential they had. It is truly amazing to see if this discovery leads to new antibiotics or environmental benefits. It could also lead to new findings all around the globe and even on other planets.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131202162200.htm

Altered Gut Microbiome

Our gut microbiota is altered whenever there is a change in our diet, lifestyle, or health. There is a new study published by researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, that states that the microbes in the gut are different in people that are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. It is known that the human body contains more microbial cells than human cells. The majority of microbes reside in our gut and some are very beneficial to our health while others are pathogenic and cause harm. There needs to be a balance in our bodies between good and bad microbes because if the bad microbes start to outnumber the good then we start to get sick.

            This new study consisting of 145 women that have type 2 diabetes proved that their gut microbiome is altered. Scientists are able to tell because they analyzed their metagenomes, the collection of genes from microbes and our own genes. In healthy women there seems to be higher number of a certain gut bacteria that produces a fatty acid called butyrate. Butyrate is known to contribute to certain health benefits. With these results scientists can now analyze a gut microbiome and tell if it is altered and if the host has type 2 diabetes. They use the metagenome to analyze the microbes in the gut.

            If possible this study could eventually lead to pre-diagnoses of the type 2 diabetes which is amazing! With further research we might even be able to alter the gut flora and add more beneficial bacteria that produce butyrate. Hopefully we will be able to prevent these awful diseases and keep our microbiomes healthy and happy.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130603092328.htm

Traveling Bacteria

We all know that bacteria can travel because we notice how one person comes to class with a cold and all of a sudden half the class is out sick. We also know that some bacteria can literally move using their flagella or cilia depending on their shapes. New research is saying that bacteria can travel the globe relatively quickly and not only through air. Bacteria and most other microbes rely on their environments and surroundings to move them about.

Researchers from labs in UK and Switzerland used a computer model to see how far and how fast bacteria could travel globally. They entered data about the bacteria including their diameter sizes. They were amazed to see that even the smallest bacteria traveled farther and faster than the larger protist-sized bacteria. They noticed that bacteria traveled easier in their own hemisphere for example bacteria that were released in South America reached Australia more readily than they did toEurope. They also noticed that bacteria hitched a ride in air currents, water currents, in and on people, and through insects or animals.

So why do we care? The biggest question that researchers are trying to answer is: “If bacteria are so good at travelling, why are they not all the same in every part of the world?” There are many hypotheses that answer this question the most common one states that bacteria can travel easily but do not settle as easily. For example bacteria can travel from country to country but might be killed or outcompeted when they arrive.

It interests me that bacteria can travel far and fast but do not always survive when they are introduced to a new environment. This adds to the diversity of bacteria, and the reason that antibiotics are not as effective as they used to be. Understanding bacteria and their behavior has benefits for improving human health.

 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/lab-rat/2011/08/30/air-microbe-how-bacteria-fly-around-the-world/

Sleeping Bacteria?

 

We are aware that antibiotics are not working to fight against pathogens. Scientists knew that bacteria would reproduce and strengthen their genome, in order to resist strains of antibiotics. Researchers from Hebrew University are claiming that there are “persistent bacteria” which are not resistant to antibiotics they simply stay in a sleeping mode or inactive state while they are exposed to antibiotics. This is scary because after the antibiotics leave the human host the pathogenic bacteria essentially wake up and continue causing harm.

According to Professor Gadi Glaser there is a connection between pathogenic bacteria and the toxin HipA, at first scientists were unaware that this toxin was actually causing the bacteria to “go to sleep.” Now they are trying to find new ways to rid of pathogenic bacteria without making them go to sleep. The researchers have created a model of how the toxin HipA disrupts the chemical “messaging” between bacteria cells. They need this messaging system to build nutrients for proteins. When the toxin interrupts the signaling the bacteria take it as a hunger period and enter into an inactive state in order to preserve their energy. Once the antibacterial treatment is over the bacteria essentially wake up and continue causing harm to their host.

Scientists are trying to understand how the toxin HipA interrupts the chemical signaling in bacteria cells in order to avoid causing the bacteria to enter into an inactive state. When we get sick we rely on medicine and antibiotics to cure us not to put the pathogenic bacteria to sleep. It will be really interesting to see how scientists will overcome this challenge. Bacteria are super tiny organisms that seem to be outsmarting even the greatest scientists.  

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131229112055.htm

 

We are aware that bacteria can adapt and survive in many different external environments. Understanding how bacteria adapt to their external environments is a new challenge in the field of molecular microbiology. Scientists want to understand how they rapidly adapt and how they are still able to reproduce even when they are not comfortable in their environments. Understanding how bacteria react to external environment change can lead to understanding how they effectively resist antibiotics.

Researchers from Uppsala University have presented a model on how bacteria rapidly adapt to changes in their environment through “smart regulation of their gene expression”.  Bacteria have to change their protein levels in order to adapt to their external environments. In order for bacteria to live and reproduce they need to get the correct amount of nutrients from their environments; but what happens when the environment changes and the amounts of certain nutrients change? Scientists know that bacteria must adjust their enzyme levels if they want to benefit from the nutrients around them in their environments. They also understand that if the environment changes rapidly than the bacteria need to adjust themselves in order to conform to the environment.

Researchers are also looking at the physiology of bacteria because understanding their composition and make up will help scientists understand how they are able to adjust to their environments. They have come to the conclusion that the reason that bacteria can still reproduce and survive when their environment undergoes rapid change is due to their proteome, or composition of their proteins.

This study will help researchers to understand bacteria and their behavior better. Bacteria and other microbes are all around us and we need to appreciate them in order to fully understand them. It is important for us to understand them because we need to learn how to live symbiotically with good bacteria and we need to understand how to defend ourselves against pathogenic bacteria. 

          http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131202161952.htm

Gut Feeling.

              Research conducted by UCLA scientist has revealed that diet affects the microbes in human guts which in turn affects how humans feel emotionally. There was little evidence at first to prove the hypothesis, “You are what you eat.” This new study consisted of 36 women, a third of them were on a diet with lots of yogurt and probiotics. Another third of them ate a substance that looked like yogurt but did not have probiotics. The other third did not consume any probiotics at all. The women received MRIs before and after the four week trial. The MRI was used to scan their brain function; when they were relaxed and when they were put under emotional stress. The scientists wanted to see if diet affected brain function.

                The data showed that the women who ate the yogurt that contained probiotics had a decrease in function in the insula (which processes the internal bodily sensations) and in the somatosensory cortex. These women also had a decrease in the engagement in the certain parts of the brain: emotion, cognition, and sensory areas. The other women who were in the other two dietary categories showed an increase or were stable in all the same areas.

                It was surprising to the scientists that there was such a range in the data. They expected to see change in the emotional part of the brain but not in the sensory or cognition. This new discovery will lead to more research aimed at finding new strategies to prevent digestive, neurological, and mental illnesses.

                Microbes never cease to amaze me, they do so much in our bodies and we still know very little about them. This research could lead to amazing treatments; imagine someone being cured of Alzheimer’s by simply changing their diet and gut flora. 

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130528180900.htm

Antibiotics have seemed to save our lives against deadly diseases, but are they now ruining our chances to fight off resistant microbes? This article written by Arjun Srinivasan talks about the effects of over usage of antibiotics. Scientists have known that antibiotics would someday stop working because bacteria and other microbes share their DNA and are able to resist antibiotics. Medical researchers want to save lives and reduce the cost of medicinal treatments. It will take many years to develop a new drug or antibiotic that will be one step ahead of the resistant microbes.

For now scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have come to the conclusion that medical personal need to limit their “handing out” of antibiotics. In the past antibiotics were prescribed to almost anyone with any symptoms of an illness. It is now proven that over prescribing antibiotics has contributed to the resistant strains of bacteria and other microorganisms.

                There is need for improvement according to the CDC, “One in three prescriptions written for the drug vancomycin included a potential error, such as prescribing without proper evaluation.” There is not much room for errors because antibiotics have led to a huge increase of antibiotic resistant microbes. The new improvements are called antibiotic stewardship; it will help save lives and preserve antibiotics. These stewardship programs will ensure that patients are accurately diagnosed, are given the correct antibiotic, given the right dosage, and for the correct duration time. This will help to limit the microbes from becoming stronger faster. It should also help with medical costs and waste.

                Microbes work fast and are smart, they have become resistant to every antibiotic drug that is on the market. Even when new drugs arise, it will not take them long to figure out how to avoid destruction. The CDC and the new stewardship programs will help to control the spread of resistant microbes. It will also help people with illnesses recover. 

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-stop-the-end-of-effective-antibiotics/