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arXiv · 2501.09366

The sleeping bacterium: shedding light on the resuscitation mechanism

Eleonora Alfinito·Matteo Beccaria
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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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Eleonora Alfinito, Matteo Beccaria. 2025-01-16. The sleeping bacterium: shedding light on the resuscitation mechanism. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.09366

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