How Does Bacteria Adapt to Changes in the Surrounding Environment?

Researchers predicted that bacteria could learn from the past to predict the future using computer simulations and a simple theoretical model. A new study published in eLife shows how bacteria could adapt to a fluctuating environment by learning its statistical regularities.

“Evolutionary ‘learning’ is commonplace. For example, many organisms have evolved a circadian clock to follow the 24-hour day and night cycle,” said Tikhonov, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences.

As bacteria do not have brains, this kind of information processing can be achieved with a circuit that is not only simple, but similar to the circuits that bacteria are already known to have.

Researchers stipulate that this kind of learning can happen only if bacteria have more regulators than necessary; if the regulators themselves are self-activated; and if the bacteria operate under the real-world nonlinear conditions.

This recent study provides new hypotheses for why some bacteria might be using unnecessary regulators or ways to modulate its different pathways.

Scientists usually study organisms in simplified settings or static environments but these unnecessary regulators are seen in many laboratory experiments can confuse them. This new study provides guide to scientists for recognizing those key ingredients described in system they study.

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Source-Medindia