Parasitic bacteria that are reliant on the other bacteria they infect have been investigated following their first-time discovery – in human spit.
As reported in New Scientist, while the small cells have gone undetected for decades, they’re in fact seemingly related to gum disease, cystic fibrosis, and antimicrobial resistance.
This type – Bdellovibrio – is a free-living cell that hunts down its prey.
‘They’re ultra-small bacteria, and live on the surface of other bacteria,’ Jeff McLean of the University of Washington School of Dentistry in Seattle told the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Boston, Massachusetts.
Read the full story in New Scientist.
