September 25, 2016 Saturday
Bedtime Story
From Quorum Sensing emerges Intelligent Decision Making
4. Calling Out the Artillery:
It is a mechanism that has been very extensively studied.
It involves production and secretion of antimicrobial compounds that can either repel or kill other microbes.
To produce sufficient quantity of it concerted effort of entire population is needed.
This is achieved by what is known as quorum sensing.
It is a technique of decision making in a decentralized system.
Quorum sensing in a population is possible as long as the following 2 conditions are fulfilled:
(a) Individuals have some means of determining or "know" the number of other individuals in the group
(b) They have a standard response once a certain threshold number of individuals has been attained in that group.
Quorum sensing forms the basis for coordination within a colony of microbes for behaviour such as biofilm formation, virulence and antibiotic resistance.
5. Jamming the Radar:
This is a mechanism that disrupts quorum sensing and thus the coordination in a rival colony of microbes.
This is achieved by production of certain specific enzymes that can disrupt intra group signalling which depends on diffusion gradient of enzymes.
Acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs) are a widely used group of signal molecules that can destroyed by at least 3 groups of enzymes: lactonases, acylases and oxidoreductases.
These are the 5 methods used by microbes to contest and compete for limited resources.
Remember mon ami, the resources in a real world is always limited, finite and distributes unevenly.
A politician or an industrialist or a right leaning economist will seldom ever sell this truth.
Competition for resources is as inherent and as inbuilt in our existence as it is in the colonies of various species and strains of microbes.
There is in essence very little that separates or distinguishes us from the lives of microbes.
It has to be that way.
As Richard Dawkins puts it:
"We are survival machines -
robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes."
Whether the robot vehicle is in the form of gut bacteria or a beautiful feminine hairless ape, it is all the same.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Bedtime Story
From Quorum Sensing emerges Intelligent Decision Making
4. Calling Out the Artillery:
It is a mechanism that has been very extensively studied.
It involves production and secretion of antimicrobial compounds that can either repel or kill other microbes.
To produce sufficient quantity of it concerted effort of entire population is needed.
This is achieved by what is known as quorum sensing.
It is a technique of decision making in a decentralized system.
Quorum sensing in a population is possible as long as the following 2 conditions are fulfilled:
(a) Individuals have some means of determining or "know" the number of other individuals in the group
(b) They have a standard response once a certain threshold number of individuals has been attained in that group.
Quorum sensing forms the basis for coordination within a colony of microbes for behaviour such as biofilm formation, virulence and antibiotic resistance.
5. Jamming the Radar:
This is a mechanism that disrupts quorum sensing and thus the coordination in a rival colony of microbes.
This is achieved by production of certain specific enzymes that can disrupt intra group signalling which depends on diffusion gradient of enzymes.
Acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs) are a widely used group of signal molecules that can destroyed by at least 3 groups of enzymes: lactonases, acylases and oxidoreductases.
These are the 5 methods used by microbes to contest and compete for limited resources.
Remember mon ami, the resources in a real world is always limited, finite and distributes unevenly.
A politician or an industrialist or a right leaning economist will seldom ever sell this truth.
Competition for resources is as inherent and as inbuilt in our existence as it is in the colonies of various species and strains of microbes.
There is in essence very little that separates or distinguishes us from the lives of microbes.
It has to be that way.
As Richard Dawkins puts it:
"We are survival machines -
robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes."
Whether the robot vehicle is in the form of gut bacteria or a beautiful feminine hairless ape, it is all the same.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Bacteria like us communicate with each other
Biofilm formation on indwelling devises such as catheters
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