Bringing Microbiology to Light: Towards all-Optical Electrophysiology in Bacteria

TL;DR

This paper advocates for the development of all-optical electrophysiology techniques to study bacterial bioelectric signals, which could revolutionize microbiology by enabling rapid, remote, and precise monitoring of bacterial membrane dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of all-optical electrophysiology in bacteria, highlighting its potential to overcome current technical limitations and advance microbiological research.

Findings

Optical methods can enable high-resolution monitoring of bacterial bioelectric signals.

Light interrogation techniques could facilitate rapid and remote bacterial electrophysiology.

The perspective encourages development of new optical tools for microbiology.

Abstract

The observation of neuron-like behaviour in bacteria, such as the occurrence of electric spiking and extended bioelectric signalling, points to the role of membrane dynamics in prokaryotes. Electrophysiology of bacteria, however, has been overlooked for long time, due to the difficulties in monitoring bacterial bioelectric phenomena with those probing techniques that are commonly used for eukaryotes. Optical technologies can allow a paradigm shift in the field of electrophysiology of bacteria, as they would permit to elicit and monitor signalling rapidly, remotely and with high spatiotemporal precision. In this perspective, we discuss about the potentiality of light interrogation methods in microbiology, encouraging the development of all-optical electrophysiology of bacteria.