Researchers at UW-Madison solved a 30-year mystery, bringing them one step closer to understanding the communication and environment of stem cells.

It had previously been thought that each chemical signal in a cell’s environment interacted with one specific type of cell receptor.

This belief is false, according to research done by Laura Kiessling, UW chemistry and biochemistry professor and Jason Gestwicki, a biochemistry graduate student. Their findings have recently been published in the scientific journal Nature.

They discovered, using synthetic organic compounds, that bacterial cells detect chemicals in their environment by simultaneously using all four major types of surface receptors — not just one at a time, as was formerly assumed.

“What we showed was it’s not just one type of protein but this whole array of proteins on the cell surface,” Kiessling said. “All the proteins collaborate with each other.”

The experiments were done using E. coli, a common type of bacteria, but Kiessling believes this mechanism may be used in an array of cell types that are extremely sensitive to their environment, including certain human cells.

With the long-term vision of creating better vaccines, Kiessling and her colleagues are already starting to investigate if immune cells have similar mechanisms.

It is not thoroughly understood how vaccines affect the immune system, which can cause serious side effects, including death, Gestwicki says.

“If we can use our synthetic approach to understand how vaccines work and understand what makes a good vaccine and a bad vaccine, then we could direct vaccine development towards creating more effective vaccines that have fewer side effects,” she said.

This new understanding of cell communication will also play a role in fighting antibiotic resistance.

Most antibiotics attempt to kill bacteria, but bacteria often develop ways to stop this from happening, causing the antibiotics to become useless.

Kiessling said she hopes to apply this new information to develop strategies that will interfere with the bacterium’s infecting ability without causing it to become resistant to drugs.

“What we would like to be able to do is interfere with virulence and pathogenesis,” Kiessling said. “Those aren’t necessary for the survival of the bacteria, but they are necessary for them infecting us.”

It may also be possible to create chemicals that can be applied to surfaces that will repel bacteria or disrupt their ability to be passed on to others. This could be valuable in places like hospitals, where many immunosuppressed patients are particularly vulnerable to infections.

By taking a unique collaborative approach to a problem that has baffled scientists for years, a new understanding of cell communication has been reached, leading to a wide range of possible applications.

“One of the things that we’re trying to get across is that different fields of science, in this case chemistry and biology, can act together to address questions that are very difficult for either of the fields to address individually,” Gestwicki said. “Laura Kiessling came at the problem very differently, and that’s why we had success with it.”