Bacteria's Viral DNA Offers a Sneak Peek into Primitive Immune Systems

Daily Tech ^ | December 31, 2010 | Tiffany Kaiser

[decimon]

Viral DNA trapped in a bacteria cell's chromosome for millions of years has shown how bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics

A Texas A&M University researcher has discovered how nature's most primitive immune systems worked by studying bacteria's methods of resisting antibiotics over millions of years.

Thomas Wood, study leader and professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, along with a team of researchers, have researched bacteria's method of using DNA from invading viruses to build a resistance to antibiotics, which revealed the secrets behind how nature's earliest immune systems worked and how it affects humans today.

What Wood and his team studied was viral DNA, which is a virus that contains DNA as its genetic material. For millions of years, viruses have had the option to replicate by trespassing into bacteria cells and merging with the chromosomes of the bacteria. The bacterium then makes a copy of its chromosome, which now contains the virus particle, and the virus acts as a ticking time bomb as it replicates itself and kills the bacterium. This isn't always the case, though. Sometimes, random mutations occurring within the bacterium chromosome can cause the virus to mutate as well when integrated into the chromosome. The mutations can make the virus unable to replicate, hence, the bacterium wins this round.

[decimon]

Viral DNA (Source: cup.uni-muenchen.de)

[decimon]

Dog eat dog ping.

[Hardastarboard]

A Texas A&M University researcher has discovered how nature's most primitive immune systems worked by studying bacteria's methods of resisting antibiotics over millions of years.

Talk about a badly written sentence. Antibiotics have only been around for about 70 years or so. I understand the author's point, but not because he made it clearly.

[decimon]

Antibiotics have only been around for about 70 years or so.

There are natural antibiotics. Don't know what was meant by the author.

[muawiyah]

Natural Antibiotics Abound.

[mnehring]

There are antibiotics in nature galore. Many substances are naturally antibiotic.

[Melas]

That’s utterly false. Antibiotics have been around since the beginning. Penicillin for example wasn’t discovered in a vacuum. Flemming was doing research on the fungi mold, because it was well documented that the blue mold on bread was used to successfully treat infections in the middle ages.

[neverdem]

Micro ping

Cryptic prophages help bacteria cope with adverse environments

Happy New Year FReebie!

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
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[colorado tanker]

No, you may not study my "primitive" immune system.

[bert]

——Antibiotics have only been around for about 70 years——

Actually, we don’t know about the age except it is very very old. Penicillin, the first widely used antibiotic was derived from mold and produced by a living organism.

Penicillin was discovered 70 years ago but has been around forever

[GraceG]

Many olden fermented drinks like beer were used as medicine too.