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Updated: May 16, 2025

Author Spotlight: A Unique Mouse Model of Asphyxia-Induced Cardiac Arrest
Published on: April 14, 2023
The sleeping bacterium: shedding light on the resuscitation mechanism
Eleonora Alfinito1, Matteo Beccaria2,3,4
1Department of Mathematics and Physics 'Ennio De Giorgi', University of Salento, 73100, Lecce, Italy. eleonora.alfinito@unisalento.it.
Abstract:
The revival mechanism in dormant bacteria is a puzzling and open issue. We propose a model of information diffusion on a regular grid where agents represent bacteria and their mutual interactions implement quorum sensing. Agents may have different metabolic characteristics corresponding to multiple phenotypes. The intra/inter phenotype cooperation is analyzed under different metabolic and productivity conditions. We study the interactions between rapidly reproducing active bacteria and non-reproducing quiescent bacteria. We highlight the conditions under which the quiescent bacteria may revive. The occurrence of revival is generally related to a change in environmental conditions. Our results support this picture showing that revival can be mediated by the presence of different catalyst bacteria that produce the necessary resources.
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