Researchers Discover Bacterial Charity Work

In the war against antibiotics, bacteria aren't selfish. According to a new report from Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers, a handful of resistant pathogens can protect an entire colony.Prevailing wisdom held that antibiotic resistance works only on an individual level: a bacterium acquires a genetic mutation that confers protection against a drug, allowing it to survive and reproduce. Eventually, as vulnerable bacteria die, the mutant's stronger progeny repopulate the colony.But the new study, published September 2, 2010, in the journal Nature, reveals that there are also population-wide changes in the bacterial community at work. Under the onslaught of an antibiotic, resistant Escherichia coli produce—at an energy cost to themselves—a protein that seeps into the communal broth and triggers a slew of protective mechanisms in their non-resistant neighbors.Read more at...HHMI News, September 2010.