{"id":444,"date":"2013-03-10T16:46:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T16:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/?p=444"},"modified":"2013-10-31T19:58:26","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T19:58:26","slug":"exploding-bacteria-for-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/exploding-bacteria-for-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploding bacteria for science!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the Chief Medical Officer,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dh.gov.uk\/health\/category\/chief-professional-officers\/chief-medical-officer\/\" target=\"_blank\">Professor Dame Sally Davies<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/health-21737844\" target=\"_blank\">highlights today<\/a> &#8220;danger posed by growing resistance to antibiotics should be ranked along with terrorism on a list of threats to the nation&#8221;. Professor Dame Sally Davies said diseases are evolving faster than the drugs that exist to treat them and <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">antibiotic resistance<\/span> is &#8220;<strong>a ticking time bomb<\/strong>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>This is a subject of great interest to scientists in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncl.ac.uk\/camb\/\" target=\"_blank\">ICaMB<\/a>, particularly the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncl.ac.uk\/cbcb\/\" target=\"_blank\">Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology<\/a>, which brings together a world-class group of scientists researching bacterial physiology and the host response to bacterial infections.\u00a0A major focus of this research involves:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Exploring alternative targets for antibiotic development<\/li>\n<li>Understanding how antibiotics attack bacterial cells<\/li>\n<li>Investigating how bacteria overcome such an attack<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tonight (March 11th 2013), work from the group of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncl.ac.uk\/cbcb\/staff\/profile\/kenn.gerdes\" target=\"_blank\">Kenn Gerdes<\/a> and Etienne Maisonneuve, a post-doc in his group, will be featured on the BBC programme &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b00lwxj1\" target=\"_blank\">Bang Goes the Theory<\/a>&#8221; in an episode about Antibiotics.<\/p>\n<p>Kenn and Etienne&#8217;s research focuses on <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Multidrug_tolerance\" target=\"_blank\">persister cells<\/a>, bacterial cells that can tolerate and survive attack by antibiotics.\u00a0 Importantly, ALL bacteria analysed so far generate &#8220;persister cells&#8221; and understanding this is key to understanding how bacteria avoid antibiotic attack. &#8220;Bang Goes the Theory&#8221; will show a movie showing how these persister cells are identified in a bacterial population.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Exploding bacteria with penicillin\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UjLmf-cVcMw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Penicillin\" target=\"_blank\">Penicillin<\/a> inhibits synthesis of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cell_wall#Bacterial_cell_walls\" target=\"_blank\">bacterial cell wall<\/a>, causing the cell to <strong>explode<\/strong> (or \u2018lyse\u2019) due to the high pressure inside the cell.\u00a0 This is why penicillin and similar drugs are very effective in curing infections caused by penicillin-sensitive bacteria. In the movie, see how the cells suddenly explode when penicillin is added but notice how one cell, the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">persister cells<\/span>\u00a0(darker cells not exploding on the left panel) are surviving.<\/p>\n<p>These persister cells evade killing by antibiotics because they grow extremely slowly. Persisters are proposed to be one explanation for infection relapses or chronic infections so Kenn and Ethienne&#8217;s work is extremely important for understanding how we should use antibiotics.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_531\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/microchamber\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-531\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-531\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/files\/2013\/03\/microfluidic-system2-300x159.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"159\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-531\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Microfluidic chamber used to make the movie<\/p><\/div>\n<p>To do this work, Etienne used state-of-the-art technology &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Microfluidics#A_tool_for_cell_biological_research\" target=\"_blank\">microfluidics<\/a> &#8211; to follow the growth of individual bacterial cells under a microscope. These devices are smaller than a penny coin and the chambers where the bacteria are grown can be less than 1 mm across. This technique allows us to grow bacteria in one condition but, at a flip of a switch, change it and watch the response, as seen in the movie.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_452\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/exploding-bacteria-for-science\/img_5919crp\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-452\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-452\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-452 \" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/files\/2013\/03\/IMG_5919crp-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-452\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Year 9 student working on one of CBCB&#039;s microscopes<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>CBCB academics have used the ability to <strong>explode <em>Escherichia coli<\/em><\/strong> to explore <strong>the what, when and how of antibiotics<\/strong> with Year 9 school students as part of the University engagement program <a title=\"Leading Edge\" href=\"http:\/\/ideastakeflight.org\/?p=725\" target=\"_blank\">Leading Edge<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With these students, we have developed a protocol to allow them to observe\u00a0<em>E. coli<\/em>\u00a0in the act of exploding after adding penicillin.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_451\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/exploding-bacteria-for-science\/blebs\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-451\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-451\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-451 \" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/files\/2013\/03\/blebs-300x261.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"261\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-451\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Exploding E. coli. Taken by Seaton Burn Community College Year 9 students<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Persistence is not Resistance:<\/strong> It is important to understand the difference between these two terms. Antibiotic resistant and sensitive bacteria are able to generate persister cells, that are not effected by antibiotic attack. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Antibiotic_resistance\" target=\"_blank\">Antibiotic Resistance<\/a> is a trait acquired by the whole population.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Scientific Specifics:<\/strong>\u00a0Over the last few years, several scientific breakthroughs made by the Gerdes group have, for the first time, given insight into how bacteria control the switch to slow growth and persistence.\u00a0Persister cells can survive penicillin because the bacteria hibernate for a period, during which they don\u2019t synthesize their cell wall. \u00a0They can then &#8220;wake up&#8221; when the antibiotic treatment is over, causing a new infection. In young and healthy people this is usually not a problem, because the rare non-growing bacteria are removed by the immune system. However, elderly individuals or those with a weakened immune system, it is often not efficient enough to permit clearance of the rare bacteria that survive the treatment, allowing the infection to \u201cbreak out\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Gerdes group has shown that a certain class of gene that inhibits cell growth are turned on in <strong>one cell per 10,000<\/strong>. These discoveries open avenues to generate novel antibiotics and treatment regimes in the future. However, before that, their group is investigating if similar mechanisms allow pathogenic bacteria, such as <em>Mycobacterium tuberculosis<\/em>, to evade killing by antibiotics.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncl.ac.uk\/camb\/\" target=\"_blank\">Institute of Cell and Molecular Biosciences<\/a><br \/>\n<a title=\"The Centre For Bacterial Cell Biology\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ncl.ac.uk\/cbcb\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Centre For Bacterial Cell Biology<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncl.ac.uk\/cbcb\/staff\/profile\/kenn.gerdes\" target=\"_blank\">Professor Kenn Gerdes<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b00lwxj1\" target=\"_blank\">Bang Goes the Theory<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/leadingedge\" target=\"_blank\">Leading Edge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Chief Medical Officer,\u00a0Professor Dame Sally Davies, highlights today &#8220;danger posed by growing resistance to antibiotics should be ranked along with terrorism on a list of threats to the nation&#8221;. Professor Dame Sally Davies said diseases are evolving faster &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/exploding-bacteria-for-science\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15],"tags":[11,12],"class_list":["post-444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-scicom","tag-bacteria","tag-cell-biology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444"}],"version-history":[{"count":165,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3164,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions\/3164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}