Bacterial cells can "remember" brief, temporary changes to their bodies and immediate surroundings, a new Northwestern University and University of Texas-Southwestern study has found.

Bacterial cells can “remember” brief, temporary changes to their bodies and immediate surroundings. And, although these changes are not encoded in the cell’s genetics, the cell still passes memories of them to its offspring—for multiple generations.

Not only does this discovery challenge long-held assumptions of how the simplest organisms transmit and inherit physical traits, it also could be leveraged for new medical applications. For example, researchers could circumvent antibiotic resistance by subtly tweaking a pathogenic bacterium to render its offspring more sensitive to treatment for generations.

The study also suggests that other organisms have the necessary elements to exhibit non-genetic heritability.

Irreversibility in bacterial regulatory networks

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado3232