Machine learning and laboratory experiments have helped scientists understand the different languages ​​bacteria use to communicate. By understanding how bacteria interact and under what conditions their communication is disrupted, researchers can solve problems with drug-resistant bacteria and contribute to the development of biocomputing technologies.

The study builds on a previous project in which researchers showed that disrupting communication between bacteria was an effective way to combat multidrug-resistant bacteria. Bacteria use small molecules to communicate with each other and coordinate infection, and the team showed that interfering with bacterial communication by blocking these molecules reduced inflammation and made bacteria more sensitive to antibiotics.

Decoding bacterial languages: a new frontier

Now researchers have taken a closer look at the languages ​​bacteria use to communicate. They used a combination of machine learning and wet lab experiments to investigate all approximately 170 known bacterial languages. This analysis provides insight into the similarities and differences between languages ​​that can be used to both destroy harmful bacteria and create useful “bacterial logic circuits.”

The first step was a machine learning analysis that grouped the languages ​​into clusters based on their molecular structure. The resulting groups consisted of languages ​​that were more similar to each other and different from the languages ​​of other groups. This can be compared to human languages: for example, English, French and Dutch belong to one language group, while Arabic and Hebrew belong to another.

Bacterial understanding and misunderstanding: an important discovery

The team then experimentally demonstrated that bacteria can understand related languages ​​to some extent. “We did a ‘bacterial language test’ and found that bacteria using very similar languages ​​could understand each other, just like a Dutch person can understand some German. We also tested communication between bacteria using very different languages ​​and found that they could not understand each other at all, just like Finnish can understand Dutch.” and just as a conversation between Arabic-speaking people cannot go very far.” says Ph.DD Who supervised the study?

The researchers showed that with these tools we can accurately assess connections between bacterial languages ​​and predict whether they can be understood. These findings will be valuable for further developing the team’s new treatment approach and will also have implications for biotechnology; Bacterial languages ​​can be used to coordinate tasks between groups within bacterial communities and even between bacterial microprocessors.