Research provides answers to the long-standing mystery of bacterial spores, illuminating new paths for disease prevention. Inert, sleeping bacteria — or spores — can survive for years, even centuries, without nutrients, resisting heat, UV radiation, antibiotics, and other harsh chemicals. Ho
A 3D illustration of Bacillus anthracis, the spore-forming bacteria that cause anthrax. Harvard Medical School researchers have found a cellular sensor that enables bacterial spores to sense nutrients and awaken from dormancy. This discovery could help prevent dangerous dormant bacteria from causing outbreaks.
It turns out that these sensors double as channels through the membrane and remain closed during dormancy but rapidly open when they detect nutrients. Once open, the channels allow electrically charged ions to flow out through the cell membrane, setting in motion the shedding of protective spore layers and the switching on of metabolic processes after years — or even centuries — of dormancy.
In most cases, signaling relies on metabolic activity and often involves genes encoding proteins to make specific signaling molecules. However, these processes are all shut off inside a dormant bacterium, raising the question of how the signal induces the sleeping bacteria to wake up. Rudner described the process of discovery in this case as a series of confounding observations that slowly took shape, thanks to a team of researchers with diverse perspectives working together synergistically.
Rudner was initially skeptical of this hypothesis because the receptor didn’t fit the profile. It had almost none of the characteristics of an ion channel. But Artzi argued the sensor might be made up of multiple copies of the subunit working together in a more complex structure.
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