Bacterial Symbiosis- Community and Connection
I tried something new this year with 3 of my 4 science classes. We grew bioluminescent bacteria. I am embarrassed to tell you the amount of time I have spent this fall keeping glow-in-the-dark microbes alive...and the number of protests I have received from members of my household about the incubation of bacterial species in our oven. We all know that scientists are eccentric- but I insist that individuals who bridge the gap between science and middle school education must make unique sacrifices combined with creative innovation somewhere on the order of Miss Frizzle. So why all this fuss? Because one of the key goals of Classical education is to instill wonder and awe in our students...and what better way than to let them hold their very own vial of bioluminescent bacteria? I felt it important to look for a way to include this activity in our study of symbiosis because I remember my own amazement when my molecular biology class performed a similar lab in college. I think I was supposed to remember important information about the bacterial genome and RNA splicing, but what I actually remember was pulling my plates out of the incubator and being floored by how beautiful such tiny and seemingly unassuming organisms could be. To press the matter further, I also believe these tiny organisms have something to teach us as Christians about community and connection.
John Mays, author of the textbook we use for 7th grade science, shares a similar sentiment in his book about teaching science. He writes, “Science provides us with an excellent forum in which to love our neighbor, and in which to learn what loving our neighbor means.” If there has been a year in my lifetime where I have felt more keenly the need to press into what it means to “love my neighbor,” I cannot remember it. The spectrum of opinions regarding the election and COVID-19 have brought this issue to the forefront of my brain- and to the forefront of theological and political discussion in the world at large. While I am not here to outline specific behaviors or principles that I believe define precisely what it means to love our neighbor, I do think this little organism, Vibrio fischeri, might give us some things to ponder as we seek to live well in God’s world.
In her 2009 TED Talk, Bonnie Bassler, a microbiologist at Princeton University who studies cell-to-cell communication in bacteria, shared her lab’s discoveries in what we now call “quorum sensing” (where are my Latin scholars at :). Before we jump into quorum sensing, let’s talk about Vibrio fischeri, the species that Dr. Bassler studies, and how its incredible symbiotic relationship works. This is literally the coolest. These bacteria live on the underside/belly of Hawaiian Bobtail squid. The squid prefers shallow water and does most of its exploring/hunting at night. From a predation standpoint, swimming around in shallow water at night is a suicide mission- your shadow is clearly visible. So how does the squid get around this problem? It has a special shutter-like organ on its belly that houses the bacteria. This shutter flushes them out in the morning, and then allows the few remaining Vibrio to slowly replicate during the day while the squid is asleep. At night, the squid opens the shutter and light is emitted. Now if that’s not amazing enough, get this. The amount of bioluminescence emitted is based on the amount of light detected from special sensors on the squids back that assess the amount of moonlight/starlight above. In response, the bacteria release exactly the amount of light that matches the light from above. Incredible. This led Dr. Bassler’s laboratory to ask, how do the bacteria know when to turn on the light? And how do they know how much light to make?
Here is where the discovery of quorum sensing comes in. They found that Vibrio fischeri makes a special hormone that sends a signal saying, “This is me, I am here!” As the bacterial cells grow, they are all making this hormone that is being released into the environment where their neighboring bacterial cells can recognize its presence. These neighboring cells are able to recognize the “This is me, I am here!” molecule because they also have special receptors on their cell surfaces that fit the “this is me!” hormone perfectly, like a lock and key. When this molecule reaches a certain amount, which tells the bacteria something about the number of neighbors present, the receptors absorb it into the cells and they collectively turn on their light. Dr. Bassler explains, “Why this is interesting is because in the past decade, we have found that this is not just some anomaly of this ridiculous, glow-in-the-dark bacterium that lives in the ocean -- all bacteria have systems like this. What we now understand is that all bacteria can talk to each other. They make chemical words, they recognize those words, and they turn on group behaviors that are only successful when all of the cells participate in unison. So now we have a fancy name for this: we call it quorum sensing.”
Where am I going with all of this? To tie theology to bacteriology- the Body of Christ functions in a Christ-like way when all the parts participate in unison. In addition, there are human parallels to the Vibrio fischeri with their “Here I am!” hormone, which requires the bacteria cells around them to be producing signals as well before they can truly orient themselves. We need each other to know something about ourselves. Paul’s writing reflects this idea throughout his letters to the Corinthians, insisting that if one part is hurt, the others are hurt too (1 Cor. 12:26), and that one believer’s sin is the lapse of all (1 Cor. 6). He holds them accountable as a group, a family whose lives are connected and held together by the gospel. Pain and sin belong not only to the individual, but to the Church as a whole. In his essay, On Being a Human Body, Rowan Williams describes it this way, “Living in the Church entails the difficult knowledge that my identity as a believer is not my business alone and that I am affected by the failure of another. Christians live in one place as members of the Body- for good and ill. No one resolves the question of their salvation alone.”
I think God has designed humans with the capacity to know ourselves and Himself better in the context of relationships with others. To allow ourselves to be known by another person is hard stuff- but it is the gold transformative relationships are built on. Marriage comes to mind as a profound example, reinforced by it’s covenantal nature. God relates to Israel through covenant, we in turn relate to each other through binding relationships. Later in his essay, Williams expounds on why this process is so hard, “So this is a body in which the vulnerability of the whole organism is accepted, in which there is normally no quick solution to the problem of disease or suffering...Healing the Body of Christ, in Paul’s perspective, seems to be a long job, one in which everyone involved is summoned to self-scrutiny in their relationships with others.” To circle back then, how does this connect to loving our neighbors? Perhaps loving our neighbors and living in community begins with having the courage to say in openness and vulnerability, “Here I am! This is me!” Staring at my own self with genuine authenticity is hard work, but allowing another to do so is an act of unprecedented courage. My prayer for us as believers, and families who are seeking to labor together in the education of young minds- is that we would lean towards each other with love, grace, and gratitude knowing we are healing as the Body of Christ together. We are laboring together towards the Kingdom of God being a present reality in our lives and in our world. Even more specifically, I pray my students would learn the beauty of being known and treasured as a part of this beloved community, and they would see God’s presence clearly in the precious masked face sitting next to them.
John Mays, Teaching Science So That Students Learn Science: A paradigm for Christian Schools, (Austin: Novare Science and Math Publishing, 2018), 12.
Bassler, Bonnie. 2009. “How Bacteria ‘Talk.’” Filmed February 3-9, 2009 in Long Beach, California. TED video, 17:56. https://www.ted.com/talks/bonnie_bassler_how_bacteria_talk?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare.
Williams, Rowan, “On Being a Human Body,” In Sewanee Theological Review; 1999; 42, 4; ProQuest Religion pg. 403.