Bacteria and their environment

For bacteria, the environment is always changing, be it the temperature, pH, pressure, antibiotics, water, dryness or even radiation. But to survive under any environmental condition, bacteria need to quickly and efficiently adapt.

For this, they have complex mechanisms to sense or feel a certain condition on the outside of the cell. For example, they measure the temperature or the pH on the cell surface and send this information to the inside of the cell, so the bacterium knows what is going on outside. Now, the bacterium adapts to the new condition by producing the necessary proteins to deal with the changing temperature or pH.

Several sensory mechanisms help bacteria understand what is happening outside the cell, so they can adapt to and grow in almost any environment.

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.

Neisseria gonorrhoeae uses their bacterial pili to attach to human gut cells.

About twitching bacteria and their pili

Some bacteria have special hair-like structures to connect to surfaces or other organisms. These bacterial pili help them move along that surface or pull themselves closer to a prey or host. Read about why bacteria need those pili when they are out hunting or infecting us.

Quorum sensing brings bacteria together and triggers them to make uniform decisions.

Quorum sensing – or how bacteria talk to each other

Bacteria also don’t like being lonely and need to know they are not alone. And often they need to talk to other bacteria and interact with them. To do so, they use a mechanism called quorum sensing. Read on to find out more about this fascinating mechanism.

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.

Springtail are attracted to the geosmin produced by Streptomyces bacteria. They eat the bacteria and transport them to new places.

Bacteria produce geosmin to trick bugs into hitchhiking

Bacteria produce many different molecules with unique tastes and smells. We and animals can react in specific ways to the bacterial molecules, however it is not always clear how these molecules actually help the bacteria. A new study focused on one such molecules and revealed that bacteria produce geosmin to attract small animals to use them to hitchhike.

Bacteria like Desulfovibrio vulgaris produce scissors that cut the bacteria free from their biofilms.

Bacteria breaking free from home

To protect themselves from the environment, bacteria build shielding biofilms houses. But once such a house gets old, bacteria need to break out it. For that, bacteria produce special scissors that can break biofilms and set free the 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.

Bacteria form nanotubes between cells to exchange nutrients

How bacteria feed each other in times of hunger

When bacteria are hungry, they sometimes also need the help of their friends. In that case, bacteria can build little tubes between them to exchange nutrients. With this bacterial nanotube, they can exchange nutrients and thus feed each other to make sure everyone survives.

Regulatory circuit of how bacteria sense environmental signals. Membrane bound anti-sigma factor releases a sigma factor into the cytosol after signal binding which modifies gene expression

How bacteria sense iron in their environment

Bacteria sense iron in the environment via proteins that are transporters and receptors in one. The transporter imports iron, while the receptor tells the bacterium that iron is present on the outside. This activates a whole circuit so that the bacterium produces more transporters to capture as much iron as possible.

For bacteria, the environment is always changing, be it the temperature, pH, pressure, antibiotics, water, dryness or even radiation. But to survive under any environmental condition, bacteria need to quickly and efficiently adapt.

For this, they have complex mechanisms to sense or feel a certain condition on the outside of the cell. For example, they measure the temperature or the pH on the cell surface and send this information to the inside of the cell, so the bacterium knows what is going on outside. Now, the bacterium adapts to the new condition by producing the necessary proteins to deal with the changing temperature or pH.

Several sensory mechanisms help bacteria understand what is happening outside the cell, so they can adapt to and grow in almost any environment.

Learn more about the fascinating world of bacteria