Health

Your Kitchen Sponge Is Disgusting: Here’s Why


In a series of experiments, the scientists showed how different microbial species can influence each other’s population dynamics depending on factors of their structural environment such as complexity. complexity and size. Some bacteria thrive in a diverse community while others prefer to exist alone. And a physical environment that allows both types to live their best lives leads to the strongest levels of biodiversity.

Soil provides this kind of optimal mixed housing environment, and so should your kitchen sponge.

Duke biomedical engineers say their results suggest that industries that use bacteria should take into account the structural environment to perform tasks like cleaning up contamination or manufacturing commercial products.

Results appear online in the journal Nature of Biological Chemistry.

Lingchong You, a professor of biomedical engineering at Duke, said bacteria are like people living through a pandemic – some find it difficult to isolate while others thrive. species, there is an intermediate amount of integration that will maximize their overall coexistence. “

Microbial communities mix to varying degrees in nature. The soil provides plenty of nooks and crannies for different populations to grow without much interaction from their neighbours. The same can be said for the water droplets on the tips of the leaves.

But when humans throw multiple species of bacteria together into an unstructured goop to produce items like alcohol, biofuels and drugs, it often sits on a plate or even a large barrel. In their experiments, You and his lab show why these industrial efforts might be wise to start applying a structural approach to their manufacturing efforts. .

The researchers barcoded about 80 different strains of E. coli bacteria so they could track their population growth. They then mixed the bacteria in a variety of combinations on growth plates in the lab with a variety of potential habitats ranging from six large wells to 1,536 small wells. The large wells are akin to the freely miscible microbial species, while the small wells simulate the space where the species can keep to themselves.

Regardless of the habitat size, the results are the same. Small wells that start with a handful of species grow into a community with only one or two surviving strains. Likewise, large wells that start with diverse biodiversity also end up with only one or two species left.

You say: “Small division actually hurts those species that depend on interactions with other species to survive, while the big split removes the members that have to suffer from these interactions (the predators). solitary). “But the division of the middle part allows for maximum diversity of survivors in the microbial community.”

The results, you say, provide a framework for researchers working with diverse microbial communities to begin testing which structural media might work best for their purposes. They also show why kitchen sponges are a useful habitat for bacteria. It mimics the different degrees of separation found in healthy soil, providing different layers of separation combined with different dimensions of communal spaces.

To prove this point, the researchers also ran their tests with a strip of common household sponges. The results showed it was an even better microbial diversity incubator than any other lab device they tested.

“As it turns out, a sponge is a very simple way to perform multilevel division that enhances the overall microbial community,” You said. “Maybe that’s why it’s a really dirty thing – the structure of the sponge just makes a perfect home for bacteria.”

Source: Eurekalert



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