Dataset Information

Bacterial biophotons as non-local information carriers: Species-specific spectral characteristics of a stress response.

ABSTRACT: Studies by Alexander Gurwitsch in the 1920' s with onion root cells revealed the phenomenon of mitogenetic radiation. Subsequent works by Popp, Van Wijk, Quickenden, Tillbury, and Trushin have demonstrated a link between Gurwitsch's mitogenetic radiation and the biophoton, emissions of light correlated with biological processes. The present study seeks to expand upon these and other works to explore whether biophoton emissions of bacterial cultures is used as an information carrier of environmental stress. Bacterial cultures (Escherichia coli and Serratia marcescens) were incubated for 24 hr in 5 ml of nutrient broth to stationary phase and cell densities of ~107 cells/mL. Cultures of E. coli were placed upon a photomultiplier tube housed within a dark box. A second bacterial culture, either E. coli or S. marcescens, was placed in an identical dark box at a distance of 5 m and received injections of hydrogen peroxide. Spectral analyses revealed significant differences in peak frequencies of 7.2, 10.1, and 24.9 Hz in the amplitude modulation of the emitted biophoton signal with respect to whether a peroxide injection occurred or not, and whether the species receiving the injection was E. coli or S. marcescens. These and the subsequent results of discriminant functions suggest that bacteria may release biophotons as a non-local communication system in response to stress, and that these biophotons are species specific.

SUBMITTER: Tessaro LWE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6562132 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Bacterial biophotons as non-local information carriers: Species-specific spectral characteristics of a stress response.

Tessaro Lucas W E LWE Dotta Blake T BT Persinger Michael A MA

MicrobiologyOpen 20181031 6

Studies by Alexander Gurwitsch in the 1920' s with onion root cells revealed the phenomenon of mitogenetic radiation. Subsequent works by Popp, Van Wijk, Quickenden, Tillbury, and Trushin have demonstrated a link between Gurwitsch's mitogenetic radiation and the biophoton, emissions of light correlated with biological processes. The present study seeks to expand upon these and other works to explore whether biophoton emissions of bacterial cultures is used as an information carrier of environmen ...[more]

PMID: 30381897

Similar Datasets

Project description:Estimation of functional connectivity (FC) has become an increasingly powerful tool for investigating healthy and abnormal brain function. Static connectivity, in particular, has played a large part in guiding conclusions from the majority of resting-state functional MRI studies. However, accumulating evidence points to the presence of temporal fluctuations in FC, leading to increasing interest in estimating FC as a dynamic quantity. One central issue that has arisen in this new view of connectivity is the dramatic increase in complexity caused by dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) estimation. To computationally handle this increased complexity, a limited set of dFC properties, primarily the mean and variance, have generally been considered. Additionally, it remains unclear how to integrate the increased information from dFC into pattern recognition techniques for subject-level prediction. In this study, we propose an approach to address these two issues based on a large number of previously unexplored temporal and spectral features of dynamic functional connectivity. A Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model is used to estimate time-varying patterns of functional connectivity between resting-state networks. Time-frequency analysis is then performed on dFC estimates, and a large number of previously unexplored temporal and spectral features drawn from signal processing literature are extracted for dFC estimates. We apply the investigated features to two neurologic populations of interest, healthy controls and patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, and show that the proposed approach leads to substantial increases in predictive performance compared to both traditional estimates of static connectivity as well as current approaches to dFC. Variable importance is assessed and shows that there are several quantities that can be extracted from dFC signal which are more informative than the traditional mean or variance of dFC. This work illuminates many previously unexplored facets of the dynamic properties of functional connectivity between resting-state networks, and provides a platform for dynamic functional connectivity analysis that facilitates its usage as an investigative measure for healthy as well as abnormal brain function.

Project description:Marine host-associated microbiomes are affected by a combination of species-specific (e.g., host ancestry, genotype) and habitat-specific features (e.g., environmental physiochemistry and microbial biogeography). The stingray epidermis provides a gradient of characteristics from high dermal denticles coverage with low mucus to reduce dermal denticles and high levels of mucus. Here we investigate the effects of host phylogeny and habitat by comparing the epidermal microbiomes of Myliobatis californica (bat rays) with a mucus rich epidermis, and Urobatis halleri (round rays) with a mucus reduced epidermis from two locations, Los Angeles and San Diego, California (a 150 km distance). We found that host microbiomes are species-specific and distinct from the water column, however composition of M. californica microbiomes showed more variability between individuals compared to U. halleri. The variability in the microbiome of M. californica caused the microbial taxa to be similar across locations, while U. halleri microbiomes were distinct across locations. Despite taxonomic differences, Shannon diversity is the same across the two locations in U. halleri microbiomes suggesting the taxonomic composition are locally adapted, but diversity is maintained by the host. Myliobatis californica and U. halleri microbiomes maintain functional similarity across Los Angeles and San Diego and each ray showed several unique functional genes. Myliobatis californica has a greater relative abundance of RNA Polymerase III-like genes in the microbiome than U. halleri, suggesting specific adaptations to a heavy mucus environment. Construction of Metagenome Assembled Genomes (MAGs) identified novel microbial species within Rhodobacteraceae, Moraxellaceae, Caulobacteraceae, Alcanivoracaceae and Gammaproteobacteria. All MAGs had a high abundance of active RNA processing genes, heavy metal, and antibiotic resistant genes, suggesting the stingray mucus supports high microbial growth rates, which may drive high levels of competition within the microbiomes increasing the antimicrobial properties of the microbes.

Dataset Information

Bacterial biophotons as non-local information carriers: Species-specific spectral characteristics of a stress response.

Publications

Bacterial biophotons as non-local information carriers: Species-specific spectral characteristics of a stress response.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets