Every night, Hawaiian bobtail squid venture out to hunt with help from an unusual partner: bioluminescent bacteria that live inside their bodies and produce light.
The bacteria, Vibrio fischeri, live in a specialized structure called the light organ. Their light helps camouflage the small squid by matching light coming from above, obscuring the animal’s silhouette from predators below.
Scientists have studied this remarkable partnership for decades. Now, new research from Michigan State University’s Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology, or MGI, is providing a detailed look at a less-understood part of the relationship: the nervous system associated with the squid’s light organ.
In a study published in BMC Biology, researchers in the lab of MGI and Integrative Biology (IBIO) Assistant Professor Elizabeth Heath-Heckman found that the nervous system in the developing light organ is surprisingly complex. Their findings offer new insight into an aspect of the squid-bacteria relationship that has remained largely unexplored.
The work fills a gap in scientists’ understanding of the peripheral nervous system, the network of nerves outside the brain and spinal cord that connects the central nervous system with the rest of the body. It also creates a foundation for investigating the larger question of how bacterial partners interact with a host’s nervous system.