The logo of the new colouring book "coloured bacteria from A-Z" published by BacterialWorld.

Antibiotics

Bacteria produce antibiotics to fight off microbial competitors. Antibiotics are chemical molecules that inhibit a certain cellular machine to kill the competitor.

Here you will learn which antibiotics bacteria produce and how they help the bacteria survive.

Picture by Noémie Matthey.
Introducing the microbiology colouring book "Coloured Bacteria from A to Z" to explore the microbial and bacterial world.

Creating the colours of the rainbow: Bacteria and the vibrant world of pigments

Our world as well as the bacterial world are full of vibrant colours. These colours exist thanks to biopigments; molecules able to capture light and reflect the corresponding colour. Many organisms, as well as bacteria, learned to use biopigments to harvest energy from sunlight, fight foes and adapt to new and challenging environments. Read on to learn what makes the bacterial world so colourful and why biopigments are the Earth’s life savers.

Bacteria use antibiotics to kill their foes and protect others

We use antibiotics to kill bacteria and fungi. Yet, antibiotics are produced by these microbes to ensure their own survival in the environment. But not only microbes that produce antibiotics benefit from them, but often even other organisms. Read on to find out how antibiotics can help many players.

Bacteria produce colourful antibiotics to protect frogs

A deadly fungus kills many exotic amphibians. Luckily, some bacteria antibiotics to kill the fungal intruder and thus protect the animal. With this colourful strategy, the right microbial community might even save whole species from extinction.

transciption in bacteria

Bacteria destroy proteins to understand the environment

For a bacterium to understand what is going on in the environment, it needs some sophisticated mechanisms. One of these includes destroying proteins. Here, we will look at why bacteria destroy proteins and how it helps them to survive.

Phages form nets around bacteria to separate them from the environment and protect from toxic compounds.

Love thy host: Phages protect bacteria from antibiotics

The players in the microbial world always interact with each other driving ecology and evolution forward. Bacteriophages thank their bacterial hosts for their production in a very special way: They protect bacteria from antibiotic attacks by forming shielding walls around the cells. While the microbial world gets more and more complex with such mechanisms, it also represents another strategy for antimicrobial resistances.

Chromombacterium transports violacein within outer membrane vesicles to kill other bacteria

Bacteria firing toxic bubbles

Bacteria can form outer membrane vesicles and fill them with antibiotics. They then send these toxic bubbles off to kill competing bacteria.

The bacterial cycle of biofilm formation

Bacteria building houses

Bacteria can be major problems for human health. One of the reasons for that is because they have the ability to hide in their own houses. Such a house is called a bacterial biofilm which protect bacteria from harsh environments, toxic chemicals and to form a community within the biofilm.

Multidrug resistant bacteria have many different ways of dealing with antibiotics

About antimicrobial resistance mechanisms

Bacteria developed different antimicrobial resistance mechanisms to get rid of antibiotics. Here, you will learn what bacteria do with antibiotics so that they don’t harm them and what superbugs are.

Bacteria produce antibiotics to fight off microbial competitors. Antibiotics are chemical molecules that inhibit a certain cellular machine to kill the competitor.

Here you will learn which antibiotics bacteria produce and how they help the bacteria survive.

Picture by Noémie Matthey.
Introducing the microbiology colouring book "Coloured Bacteria from A to Z" to explore the microbial and bacterial world.

Learn more about the fascinating world of bacteria

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Animals Antibiotics Antimicrobial resistance Bacterial communication Bacterial interactions Bacterial membrane Bacterial movement Bacterial multicellularity Bacterial stress response Biofilms Chemotaxis Food microbiology Fungi Health Human body Immune system Microbial communities Microbial fermentation Physiology Plants Quorum sensing Secondary metabolism Short chain fatty acids Sporulation Toxins Virus

Categories

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Agrobacterium Akkermansia Anabaena Bacillus Bacteroides Bifidobacterium Blautia Burkholderia Caulobacter Chromobacterium Clostridium Deinococcus Enterococcus Escherichia Eubacterium Faecalibacterium Gemmatimonas Helicobacter Ideonella Janthinobacterium Klebsiella Lactobacillus Magnetospirillum Myxococcus Neisseria Oceanithermus Pseudomonas Ruminococcus Salmonella Serratia Staphylococcus Streptococcus Streptomyces Thiovulum Vibrio Wolbachia Xanthomonas Yersinia Zymomonas

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