Light-activated Bacteria

Neuroscientists have had the monopoly on using light-activated proteins to induce electrical impulses in cells. This ability to control cell firing at the flick of a switch has revolutionised research into the brain, but brain cells are not the only electrical cells in nature. It’s understood, for example, that changes in microbial cell electrophysiology regulate all sorts of processes including spore production, biofilm formation and susceptibility to antibiotics. With this in mind, researchers have now adapted tools previously used in neurons for use in bacteria. The bacteria in the video contain such photoswitch proteins and, when exposed to light for 10 seconds (every 10 minutes), become negatively charged (hyperpolarised) – seen as a pulse of blue colour. As a proof-of-concept experiment, these flashing bacteria open the door for research into various aspects of microbial electrophysiology and pave the way for developing synthetic bacteria whose functions can be controlled by light.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

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Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

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• Video from work by Tailise Carolina De Souza-Guerreiro and colleagues
• School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK and Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Istituto Italiano di Teconologia, Milano, Italy
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Advanced Science, January 2023