Matters Microbial #115: Suiting Up Against Bacterial Predators! November 6, 2025
Today Dr. Hannah Ledvina, Assistant Professor in the Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Department at the University of Michigan joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss how bacteria can protect themselves against predators in unusual ways . . . including a type of armor!
Host: Mark O. Martin
Guest: Hannah Ledvina
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Links for this episode
- The "Giant Microbes" website.
- A prompt for my course: an article on "Animals in a Microbial World," with so many interesting examples. Here is a summary for novice #Micronauts.
- A prompt for my course: an article by the late, great Lynn Margulis on the nature of kefir grains and the definition of multicellularity and the organism.
- A prompt for my course: an article on hyperpolyploidy in bacteria.
- An explanation of "genomic islands."
- A link to a previous guest of #MattersMicrobial, Dr. Laura Williams, discussing Bdellovibrio and undergraduate based research.
- An overview of predatory bacteria. Here is a more recent overview.
- An overview of the predator Myxococcus.
- A wonderful video showing the predatory process of Myxococcus.
- A fine review of the predator Bdellovibrio.
- A video of the life cycle of Bdellovibrio.
- Some work by Dr. Koval and colleagues suggesting that aspects of the outer cell wall is not involved with resistance to Bdellovibrio.
- Recent VERY exciting work suggesting that there is indeed a receptor on bacteria that Bdellovibrio can recognize. Here is a short summary of that work.
- Could Bdellovibrio become a "living antibiotic"?
- A reminder from Drs. Kolter and Losick that bacteria in the laboratory can be quite different from their relatives in nature.
- The article under discussion on this podcast by Dr. Ledvina and colleagues. Here is an editorial summary on the article.
- An article on curli proteins in bacteria.
- An article on amyloid like proteins in bacteria.
- A video by Dr. Ledvina on the research interests of her group.
- Thoughts on an "immune system" for bacteria.
- Dr. Ledvina's faculty website.
- Dr. Ledvina's research group website.
Intro music is by Reber Clark
Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com
