Soil scientists get bacteria to report on what their neighbors are up to.
To detect microbial activity, E. coli bacteria are genetically engineered to produce the EFE protein constitutively and MHT in response to the bacterial communication molecule AHL. The presence of the E. coli in the soil, and the levels of AHL, in this example produced by Rhizobium bacteria, can then be detected non-disruptively using headspace gas chromatography—with the ratio of MHT-produced CH3Br to EFE- produced ethylene reflecting the concentration of AHL.
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Ruth is a freelance journalist. Before freelancing, Ruth was a news editor for the Journal of Cell Biology in New York and an assistant editor for Nature Reviews Neuroscience in London. Prior to that, she was a bona fide pipette-wielding, test tube–shaking, lab coat–shirking research scientist. She has a PhD in genetics from King’s College London, and was a postdoc in stem cell biology at Imperial College London. Today she lives and writes in Connecticut.
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