"Neural networks" in bacteria: making connections.

Journal article

This series of conferences beautifully illustrates and reflects the dramatic pace of development within the field of bacteriology. In the initial meeting the talks tended to be about the molecular details of single systems. Only 5 years on the talks centered on the complex integrative nature of signaling networks, their sensitivity to the changing external environment, and, in the case of pathogens and symbionts, their dialogue with their hosts. What is becoming very clear from the rapid increase in data on sensory networks in increasing numbers of bacterial species is that no two species are alike. Indeed, no cell within a population is identical to its neighbor, and each is influenced by its stage in the cell cycle, its recent and historical past, and its local environment. We need to make sense of this increasing volume of information in order to develop a deeper understanding of particular species and to create generic models that will allow some insight into how individual cells, dispersed populations, and communities of bacteria (single and mixed species) will respond to change. This is the challenge of the next series of meetings. Taking on this challenge requires the true integration of different disciplines, combining the skills of the microbial physiologist and biochemist, the physicist, the computational and mathematical modelers, the engineers, and the technologists. Each needs to understand the other's language and then mobilize their different skills to address a common biologically driven problem: the design and operation of bacterial sensory networks. We must not however neglect past experience, the roots of bacterial physiology, but combine this with new knowledge of the molecular details of the component parts of these complex circuits to develop (or revive?) a broad holistic approach. This will involve combining the accumulated wealth of biochemical and metabolic data with the current flood of data from genomics and proteomics, brought into a coherent whole through modelling, in order to produce useful guides on the way to the "total" understanding of the complex nature that makes up a bacterium.

Authors: Armitage, J; Holland, I; Jenal, U; Kenny, B

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Journal of bacteriology
• Volume: 187
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 26-36
• Publication date: 2005-01-01
• DOI: 10.1128/jb.187.1.26-36.2005
• EISSN: 1098-5530
• ISSN: 0021-9193
• Language: English
• Keywords: Signal Transduction; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; Bacterial Proteins; Sigma Factor; Phosphoenolpyruvate Sugar Phosphotransferase System; Bacteria; Chemotaxis; Nitrogen Fixation