THE Japanese bobtail squid and luminescent marine bacteria live in blissful harmony: the bacteria have a home in the squid’s light organ while producing for the squid rippling patterns of light to confuse prey or predators. The way bacteria form this symbiotic relationship may now shed light of another kind, on human disease.
Only some strains of the bacterium Vibrio fischeri will colonise squid, while other bacteria of the same species live happily in fish but avoid squid. Mark Mandel and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin in Madison report this week that a single gene makes all the…
