A Bug’s Life: E. coli can’t escape old age
Speaking about common characteristics of living things, the Nobel prize–winning biochemist Jacques Monod once said, “What is true for [the bacterium Escherichia] coli is true for the elephant.” Now, research has highlighted a new similarity between the two organisms: Like elephants and possibly all other life forms, E. coli is susceptible to the ravages of aging.
A rod-shaped bacterium found in the intestines of people and many other animals, E. coli reproduces asexually in a symmetrical manner—that is, one mother cell divides down the middle to form two identical daughters. Researchers haven’t been sure whether symmetrically reproducing organisms ever grow old.