The Upside of Microbial Suicide

Researchers show that a bacterium’s self-sacrifice can benefit its community, even when the members are not strongly related.  

For Escherichia coli, suicide can have fitness advantages in the face of deadly infection, even if the suicidal individual is surrounded by distantly related neighbors, according to new research published today (March 20) in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Researchers demonstrated that suicide designed to limit a virus’s spread through bacteria can still benefit the suicidal strain even if some the bacterial cells saved by the voluntary death are not related.

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