Bacterial Warfare
Many bacteria are extremely aggressive. They assemble poisoned molecular spears to stab neighbours, they release protein machines that punch holes in competitors and some cells even die in order to launch their attacks (shown below). We want to understand why bacteria have so many weapons and how they use them in competition with other strains. By understanding what makes a winning strain, we aim to develop strategies that pit beneficial bacteria against pathogens and prevent disease.
E. coli cells making an antibacterial toxin (green, colicin E2) and releasing it via cell lysis (pink). Read more
Recent papers
Booth SC, Smith WPJ, Foster KR 2023. The evolution of short and long-range bacterial weapons. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 10.1038/s41559-023-02234-2
Granato E, Smith WPJ, Foster KR 2023. Collective protection against the type VI secretion system in bacteria. ISME journal, 0.1038/s41396-023-01401-4
Oliveira NM, Wheeler JHR, Deroy C, Booth SC, Walsh EJ, Durham WH, Foster KR 2022. Suicidal chemotaxis in bacteria. Nature Communications, 13: 7608
Palmer J, Foster KR 2022. The evolution of spectrum in antibiotics and bacteriocins. PNAS, 119: e2205407119
Granato E, Foster KR. 2020 The evolution of mass cell suicide in bacterial warfare. Current Biology, 30: 1-8.
Smith WPJ, Vettiger A, Winter J, Ryser T, Comstock LE, Basler M, Foster KR. 2020 The evolution of the type VI secretion system as a disintegration weapon. PLoS Biology 18,5: e3000720.