Question: how are you thinking of stopping bacteria communication?

Katie Fala answered on 11 Nov 2019:

Thanks for your question! My project is looking at microbial ecoystems or ‘microbiomes’ as potential sources of new molecules/drugs to stop bacterial communication. The reason for this is that we know that bacteria communicate with one another in multispecies ecosystems and we hypothesise that other bacteria in these communities have evolved ways to outcompete their neighbours and may produce substances to interrupt their competitors communications, thereby giving themselves an advantage.

We aren’t sure exactly what form these new drugs may take – they could be an enzyme that ‘eats’ (cleaves) the signalling molecules, or they could be molecules that block the receptors on the surface of the bacteria that stop them from detecting signalling molecules, or could stop the bacterial communication in some other way. We have found many promising bacteria that seem to interrupt bacterial communications, so the next plans are to identify these ‘good’ bacteria, characterise what substances they are producing and see if it could be used as a new type of antimicrobial treatment, possibly in combination with other antibiotics.