When bacteria communicate with fungi
Humans, animals, plants and single-celled organisms use small biomolecules as signaling substances to send messages or trigger reactions. "Microorganisms produce a variety of such substances, and we are just beginning to understand this language," says Axel Brakhage, director of the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology and professor at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. He and his research group have found that representatives of the bacterial genus Streptomyces are particularly capable of communication.