Accumulate to Exterminate

The dead returning to persecute the living is the stuff of horror movies, but for bacteria, that nightmare may well be a reality. And it’s being enabled by silver, a well-known antimicrobial compound with a surprising long-lasting impact. Recent research has shown that treating bacteria with silver not only kills the cells, but also causes them to accumulate silver particles (shown in white), which can then be released into the environment when healthy bacteria are present. Dubbed the 'zombie effect', this essentially turns dead bacteria into antimicrobial agents in their own right. Silver is already used extensively to provide protection against microbes; in hospitals, it can be present in anything from bandages to door handles. This new insight into how silver really affects bacterial populations could help improve the design of medical equipment, to fully utilise the potential of the bacterial kingdom’s living dead.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Image from work by Racheli Ben-Knaz Wakshlak, Rami Pedahzur and David Avnir
• The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
• Reprinted with permission from AAAS
• Research published in Scientific Reports, April 2015