News Ecosystems

Parasite brood gets help from nearby microbes

Study suggests new way to battle common intestinal infection

By Rachel Ehrenberg

- More than 2 years ago

The question of which came first, the whipworm or the whipworm egg, leaves out a key player: bacteria.

EGGED ON Bacteria (tiny flecks) swarm around the eggs of intestinal whipworms, alerting the parasites that they are in a good place to hatch. Kelly Hayes, University of Manchester

Eggs of the parasitic whipworm, whose potential hosts include humans, won’t hatch in their host’s intestine until they get the go-ahead from nearby gut bacteria, researchers report June 10 in Science.