title: Staying in Touch while on the Go.
abstract: While chemical forms of cell-to-cell communication are well recognized to coordinate bacterial populations, electrical signaling has been relatively ignored. Humphries et al. show that Bacillus subtilis biofilms utilize potassium production to attract far away, motile cells of even phylogenetically distant species by altering their membrane potential.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. Electronic address: kchuang@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Kerwyn Casey
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D001412:Bacillus subtilis; D018441:Biofilms