This week's top research is all about microbes: bacterial microbes with a sense of touch, microbes that may explain the evolutionary origins of DNA folding, and听soil microbes as a vital component of the ecosystem.
Bacteria have feelings, too
Humans鈥櫶齭ense of touch is relayed to the brain via small electrical pulses,听but new research shows individual bacteria can feel their external environment in a similar way. Scientists have demonstrated that E. coli bacteria cells get excited when poked, sending out voltage induced calcium ion signals鈥攖he same way a vertebrate鈥檚 sensory nervous system works.听
Microbe may explain evolutionary origins of DNA folding
In the cells of palm trees, humans听and some single-celled microorganisms, DNA gets bent the same way. By studying the 3-D structure of proteins bound to DNA in microbes called Archaea, CU 麻豆影院 and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have turned up surprising similarities to DNA packing in more complicated organisms.
Soil doesn't forget
Soil microbes are vital to nearly every function of an ecosystem, but today鈥檚 climate conditions do not fully explain the types of soil microbes ecologists听see. So CIRES researchers听are looking thousands of years back in time to听better understand how soil communities may change in response to climate change in the future.