418: Special Sea Species Swallows Cells

This episode: A newly discovered species of bacteria consumes
other bacteria as prey by engulfing them!


Download Episode (8.7 MB, 12.6 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: SARS-CoV-2! This is the coronavirus
responsible for COVID-19, the current pandemic. For more
up-to-date information, please refer to the American Society for
Microbiology, This Week in Virology, and other reputable sources.
Stay healthy!

Takeaways
There are bacteria living almost every different lifestyle you
can think of, including predatory, preying on other bacteria.
Since bacterial cells are usually quite rigid, bacterial
predators usually consume others either by burrowing inside them
or digesting them from outside, rather than engulfing prey like
eukaryotes often do.

The study here discovers a new kind of bacteria, in the group
called Planctomycetes, known for having unusually flexible cells
and internal compartments like eukaryotes. This new species does
engulf its prey, including bacteria and even tiny algae, and
digests them inside itself. It possesses multiple adaptations
that suit it for this lifestyle.

Journal Paper:
Shiratori T, Suzuki S, Kakizawa Y, Ishida K. 2019.
Phagocytosis-like cell engulfment by a planctomycete bacterium.
Nat Commun 10:1–11.


Other interesting stories:



Engineering a common industrial yeast strain to fix carbon
dioxide (paper)

Lake microbes convert microplastics into essential fatty
acids




 


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