Victoria DeBarbieris
Watch How Bacteria “Talk” and answer the following questions about how bacteria
communicate.
http://www.ted.com/talks/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html
How does the number of cells that make up
humans compare to the number of bacteria
cells in / on a human being?
What are some of the pros and cons of
bacteria for humans?
How do bacteria make and receive signals?
What is quorum sensing?
What does Bonnie B mean by “Bacteria
control pathogenicity with quorum sensing?
Explain how intra-species and inter-species
communication occur.
What are the practical applications of
studying social interactions of bacteria?
There are about 10 times the amount of
bacteria cells to human cells (only 1 trillion
human cells in a person and 10 trillion
bacteria cells on a person).
Pros Cons
 They keeps us  the wrong kind
alive of bacteria can
 they keep make you
environmental incredibly sick
insults out to
keep us healthy
 they digest our
food
 they make our
vitamins
 help our
immune system
Bacteria receive their signals by sending
signals that they made from proteins out to
other bacteria, “talking” with each other.
Quorum sensing is when bacterial cells all
send out a chemical signal that increase in
concentration as a function of cell density.
She means that bacteria have the potential
to create pathogens with the use of quorum
sensing.
Intra-species communication occurs within a
species because they are all similar in
molecular composition. Inter-species
communication occurs because each
bacterium has a separate receptor enzyme
and a separate signaling molecule that allows
for communications between different
species.
The practical applications of studying social
interactions of bacteria is to eventually be

How does information about bacterial
communication relate to cell communication
in multi-cellular organisms?
able to prevent them from “talking and
hearing” so that we can stop getting sick and
make antibiotics.
Information about bacterial communication
relates to cell communication in multi-
cellular organisms because it is very similar to
the processes that occur. “We know that the
principles and the rules, if we can figure them
out in these sort of primitive organisms, the
hope is that they will be applied to other
human diseases and human behaviors as
well.”