421 - Nucleocapsids Navigate Nano Nuggets

Gold nanorods bound to phage
Used with permission

This episode: Using phages to target gold nanoparticles to infecting bacteria, then using light to heat the nanoparticles just enough to kill the bacteria!

Thanks to Huan Peng and Raymond Borg for contributing!


Download Episode (10.6 MB, 15.4 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Pantoea agglomerans

News item

Takeaways
Viruses that infect bacteria, bacteriophages, are often very good at overcoming bacterial defenses and killing them. This raises the possibility, and many times actuality, of using phages to treat bacterial infections that are no longer treatable with antibiotics. But bacteria can evolve resistances to viruses as well as drugs, and using multiplying, evolving entities as treatments in people raises questions about the safety and consistency of the treatment.

This study circumvents these questions by using phages for delivery and targeting of bacteria rather than the therapeutic agent itself. The actual treatment is done with tiny rods of gold, gold nanorods, bound to the phage surface. When a certain wavelength of light hits these nanorods, they vibrate enough to generate enough heat in their immediate surroundings to render nearby bacteria nonviable. Thus the infection is treated in a very localized, targeted way that doesn't leave any active bacteria or phages behind. The authors have plans to study this approach as a topical treatment of wounds.

Journal Paper:
Peng H, Borg RE, Dow LP, Pruitt BL, Chen IA. 2020. Controlled phage therapy by photothermal ablation of specific bacterial species using gold nanorods targeted by chimeric phages. Proc Natl Acad Sci 117:1951–1961.

Other interesting stories:

• Two bacteria growing together on agar make pretty patterns
• Marine bacteria kill and digest other bacteria (paper)

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

BacterioFiles 420 - Cell Societies Stay Stable

Bacteroides species

This episode: Simplified gut communities growing in bioreactors grow and metabolize reproducibly, with only moderate variations, even when individual members of the community are absent!


Download Episode (8.2 MB, 11.9 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Citrobacter virus Merlin

Takeaways
The community of microbes in our guts is highly complex, with thousands of species all interacting with each other, with our own cells, and with the contents of our diet. Each region of the gut has a different collection of microbes as well. Many questions remain to be answered about the functions and fluctuations of these communities. How can we study such a complex system? Which species, if any, are most important for its continued function?

In this study, a simplified community of only 14 species is grown repeatedly in bioreactors, and one species at a time is left out of the community to see what will change in its absence. This reveals effects different species have on the overall growth, carbon source consumption, and production of various metabolites relevant to gut health. Some microbes have large effects, but none of them appears to be crucial for the overall function and stability of the community.

Journal Paper:
Gutiérrez N, Garrido D. 2019. Species Deletions from Microbiome Consortia Reveal Key Metabolic Interactions between Gut Microbes. mSystems 4:e00185-19.

Other interesting stories:

• Some archaea can survive for a while trapped inside salt crystals (paper)
• Bacteria degrade BPA in soil (paper)

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

BacterioFiles 419 - Marine Methane Microbe Multiplication

Anaerobic methanotrophs

BacterioFiles is back! This episode: Measuring how quickly marine methane-consuming microbes become active when new methane enters an area!


Download Episode (9.0 MB, 13.0 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Torque teno midi virus 6

Takeaways
Oceans and the organisms living in them have a large effect on the planet, in terms of climate and gases they absorb from or release into the atmosphere. They are a source of much of a potent greenhouse gas, methane, but microbes living in ocean sediments also consume large amounts of methane. These anaerobic methanotrophic archaea generate energy for themselves by transforming methane and sulfate into carbonate and sulfide.

In this study, however, methane-consuming microbes were only found active at sites of methane seepage. Even in sites where methane had previously been present, only few of these microbes were present and active. After enriching samples of these sediments for up to 8 months, still the only activity that was seen was from actively methane-consuming communities. So once dispersed, such communities seem slow to regenerate as the locations of methane seepage shift.

Journal Paper:
Klasek S, Torres ME, Bartlett DH, Tyler M, Hong W-L, Colwell F. 2020. Microbial communities from Arctic marine sediments respond slowly to methane addition during ex situ enrichments. Environ Microbiol 22:1829–1846.

Other interesting stories:

• Bird and bat microbiomes have some similarities
• Twins often share certain gut microbes, even if they've been living apart for decades

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.