The concept of self-sacrifice was discovered within the colonies of the Salmonella bacteria. Merely, a survival strategy. In normal cases, whenever the human body becomes infected by Salmonella, the body’s innate immunity represented in the gastrointestinal tissue barriers and normal commensal intestinal flora, literally fights back.

Fortunately enough for the bacteria, they have a way to tackle down this problem. Basically, they divide themselves in two groups, one ready to sacrifice itself for the well-being & the survival of the other. To elaborate more about this, the 1st group has the job of invading the tissues and thus triggering an inflammatory response which is basically a suicide. The 2nd group awaits for the chance of the inactivation of the normal flora & strikes an attack to find a paved smooth way for host infection.

Nothing in the genome dictates the fate of each specific bacterium since they are all members of the same bacterial colony. The difference in the bacterium’s behaviour within the host tissues is due to the random distribution of the cellular components between the two daughter cells.

This same scenario might also apply on a number of different of pathogenic bacteria. This might give us a closer look on the mechanism of bacterial infection & probably provide us with new ideas on how to tackle it.

Source: ScienceDaily

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2 Responses to “To Sacrifice: To destruct for the greater well-being”
  1. Just making sure that I got it right,
    a Salmonella group invades the intestinal mucosa & the other one got them covered by competing with the normal flora?!
    this is so unbelievable.

  2. the group which invades are sacrificed for the well-being of the other one

    amazing, isn’t it :)??


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