Bacterial groth dynamics in gut microbiota (2015)

[research555]

A distributed cell division counter reveals growth dynamics in gut microbiota (2015)

Paper

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10039

One sentence summary

• It was a proof of concept study that tried to figure out a way to accurately determine the amount of generations that had elapsed in a given time period in vivo and in real time

Main outlines

• Gut microbiota structure can change rapidly in response to antibiotic or diet but mechanism by which this happens is unknown as we can’t measure the dynamics in vivo directly

  They use the mark and recapture method borrowed from ecologists to try to estimate the number of bacterial cell divisions

• The way they do this is by using inert particles that are able to segregate during division
• When a cell divides, the particle remains in one of the two daughter cells and due to this, its concentration in the population decreases exponentially through cell divisions
• By measuring the distribution of particles in the older population, they can now infer the number of generations that have elapsed since they marked them

Main findings

• The system worked successfully in natural systems and they can infer the microbiota dynamics without actually having to observe it directly with low false positive and false negative rates
• The system works for all species as long as they can be modified to express self assembling protein fusion under control of an inducible promoter
• Function of generations, not time, so should work in species with slow proliferation
• Can be used to elucidate dynamics of the gut microbiota in vivo and in real time

Relevance to our project

• I think knowing at what stage the bacteria is at in terms of generation could be important. That's why this is sort of relevant. Not 100% sure though.