A bacterium known to slow fruit ripening shows promise at slowing down white-nose syndrome—a disease that's wiping out bats.
White-nose syndrome has claimed millions of bats since the disease was first detected in New York state in 2006. The culprit—a fungus—eats its way into the wings of its victims, draining the life out of them. It has shown little sign of stopping in its westward trek across the United States and Canada, but a new treatment could change that.
The treatment is based on a bacterium that inhibits fungal growth, and was originally studied to see if it could slow the ripening of fruits and vegetables. Researchers are in their second year of trials with little brown bats and Northern long-eared bats, and the results look promising, says Sybill Amelon, a wildlife biologist specializing in bats with the U.S. Forest Service in Columbia, Missouri.
Amelon and her team released about 15 treated bats back into the wild on May 19. The treatment helps all but the most heavily infected bats.
If they're treated early enough, the bacteria can kill off the fungus before it gains a foothold in the animal. But even bats already showing signs of white-nose syndrome show lower levels of the fungus in their wings after being treated.
A cloud of chemicals given off by the bacteria—a strain of Rhodococcus rhodochrous—seems to be the key to killing or slowing the deadly fungus, Amelon says.
Chris Cornelison, an applied microbiologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta, first tested the bacterium against the white-nose fungus in 2011.
A former colleague had discovered that the bacterium reduced the amount of mold that formed on bananas and surmised that R. rhodochrous was an antifungal, he explains.
"I thought if Rhodococcus can prevent molds from growing on bananas, it may be able to stop a mold growing on a bat," says Cornelison.
The new treatment could be deployed in an entire cave of hibernating bats without having to handle them or leave chemicals in their environment. But Cornelison and colleagues haven't quite figured out how they could deliver the treatment.
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