The Microbial Olympics

Abstract

Every four years, the Olympic Games plays host to competitors who have built on their natural talent by training for many years to become the best in their chosen discipline. Similar spirit and endeavour can be found throughout the microbial world, in which every day is a competition to survive and thrive. Microorganisms are trained through evolution to become the fittest and the best adapted to a particular environmental niche or lifestyle, and to innovate when the 'rules of the game' are changed by alterations to their natural habitats. In this Essay, we honour the best competitors in the microbial world by inviting them to take part in the inaugural Microbial Olympics.

Figure 1. The 100 μm freestyle swimming

Contestants (and country of origin) by lane: (1) sodium-driven chimeric Escherichia coli, with multiple flagella (Japan); (2) proton-driven E. coli, with multiple flagella (USA); (3) sodium-driven Vibrio alginolyticus, with a single polar, clockwise locked ‘puller’ flagellum (that is, the flagellum pulls the cell body along behind it; Japan); (4) sodium-driven V. alginolyticus with a single polar, anticlockwise locked ‘pusher’ flagellum (that is, the flagellum pushes the cell body along in front of it; Japan); (5) proton-driven Pseudomonas aeruginosa, with a single polar flagellum (Australia); (6) proton-driven Rhodobacter sphaeroides, with a single subpolar flagellum (USA); (7) proton- driven Rhodospirillum rubrum, a spiral-shaped bacterium with multiple flagella at each pole to both push and pull (USA); and (8) proton-driven Yersinia enterocolitica, with multiple flagella (Belgium). See Supplementary information S1 (movie) for a video of the race.

Figure 2. The pathogen relay

The trade-off between virulence and transmission, represented as a relay race.