Visual caution: View sitting down. Keep smaller screen until :43 into this . . . as the deep black background and thin white strips can be very disorienting.
At :43, it's "safe" to enlarge video to full screen for the best way to really comprehend the scope of this amazing experiment.
2' x 4' Petri Dish with nine fields.
Middle band has one thousand times as much antibiotic as starting.
Agar, in a thin layer, is used across the field is a plant / algae gelatin food source.
WATCH: Bacteria Invade Antibiotics And Transform Into Superbugs
By Angus Chen - NPR - September 8, 2016
Two-minute video & article.
Excerpt:
. . . By having the e. coli bacteria grow across bands of increasingly stronger doses of antibiotic, the scientists could make it look like evolution was marching across the dish. But the setup had another effect that the researchers didn't expect.
The faster growing colonies of resistant bacteria were cutting off the growth of slower but more drug-resistant colonies and becoming more successful.
When bacteria evolve drug resistance, it usually comes at some kind of cost to the bug. In the presence of an antibiotic, faster growing colonies don't grow as robustly as the slower ones – but that often doesn't matter.
If the strain wants to live on, it just needs to be the first to get to the next human or food source.
"[This] phenomenon has been very, very tough to study classically," says Michael Baym, the postdoc who built the 4-by-2-foot petri dish in Kishony's lab. In his contraption, it's impossible to miss. . . .
Spatiotemporal microbial evolution on antibiotic landscapes
Science 09 Sep 2016 - Authors listed at link
Abstract excerpt:
. . . allowed visual observation of mutation and selection in a migrating bacterial front. While resistance increased consistently, multiple coexisting lineages diversified both phenotypically and genotypically.
Analyzing mutants at and behind the propagating front, we found that evolution is not always led by the most resistant mutants; highly resistant mutants may be trapped behind more sensitive lineages. . . .
. . . Research grade agar is used extensively in plant biology as it is supplemented with a nutrient and vitamin mixture that allows for seedling germination in Petri dishes under sterile conditions . . . . -
Posted by Jordana (Member # 45305) on :
Wow that is really amazing. And depressing.
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- My eyes have remained WIDE since seeing that. I can't get them to stop being in AWE. -
Posted by SLH516 (Member # 48060) on :
Dang. Wow, thanks for sharing that. Incredibly impressive. Biology's so cool except when (or perhaps especially when) it's kicking our a**es. My science-minded friends are going to love this!
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- Of course, proper kitchen hygiene and safe cooking methods can destroy e coli in foods . . . still I just prefer to not bring it in in the first place.
While it can be on any meats (and other foods) it's much more likely in ground meats due to the nature of how that is butchered / processed at the plants.
Another good reason to never buy ground meats in packages but only from reputable places where a very clean meat department grinds it right there, fresh daily and keeps it very cold in their fridge case.
And, not just for ground meats, it's a good idea to buy any meats from such an environment.
While we all have e coli in our lower gut, naturally, keeping that whole GI tract healthy and in balance with good bacteria really matters.