New Research Shows That Bacteria Get 'Hangry', Too
Published:12 Apr.2023 Source:University of North Carolina Health Care
Rosenthal and his colleagues from Harvard, Princeton and Danisco Animal Nutrition discovered that bacteria behave much more different than we traditionally thought. Even a community of bacteria are all genetically identical, they don't all act the same way.
Rosenthal selected Clostridium perfringens as his microbe of study and found that toxin-producing C. perfringens cells appear to be lacking those crucial nutrients. What’s more, the toxin-producing cells to behave better when given more of nutrients.
Rosenthal theorizes that introducing nutrients to bacteria could provide a new alternative treatment for animals and humans, alike. The recent findings may give farmers a new tool to reduce pathogenic bacteria without the use of antibiotics. In the meantime, Rosenthal will continue to research these increasingly complex bacterial communities to better understand why they do what they do.