Do sleeping spores dream of electric sheep?
Sometimes procrastination pays off. When their environment gets too stressful, many bacteria stuff some of their innards into ultratough packets called spores, which shut down and wait—potentially for centuries—for things to improve. How do these seemingly dead specks sense optimal conditions for revival? A new study in Science reveals that bacterial spores can decide when to wake up by setting an electric alarm.
Spores are only indestructible while they’re dormant. So they have to avoid waking up when conditions are unfavorable, says biochemist Peter Setlow of the University of Connecticut, who was not involved in the study: “If you make the wrong decision and you come back to life, you are dead.” “This is a significant advance in the field,” Setlow says. “It brings up a whole new way of thinking about germination.” Knowing how spores “count” nutrients could improve food safety, because spore-forming bacteria can survive harsh sterilization procedures and revive to cause food poisoning. Dormancy also helps some disease-causing germs evade attack; waking them early could improve treatments, so “there’s a lot of applied interest in how to get spores to germinate rapidly,” Setlow adds.
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