Single-cell analysis of multiple invertible promoters reveals differential inversion rates as a strong determinant of bacterial population heterogeneity.

ABSTRACT: Population heterogeneity can promote bacterial fitness in response to unpredictable environmental conditions. A major mechanism of phenotypic variability in the human gut symbiont Bacteroides spp. involves the inversion of promoters that drive the expression of capsular polysaccharides, which determine the architecture of the cell surface. High-throughput single-cell sequencing reveals substantial population heterogeneity generated through combinatorial promoter inversion regulated by a broadly conserved serine recombinase. Exploiting control over population diversification, we show that populations with different initial compositions converge to a similar composition over time. Combining our data with stochastic computational modeling, we demonstrate that the differential rates of

SUBMITTER: Lan F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10403206 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature