Altruistic feeding and cell-cell signaling during bacterial differentiation actively enhance phenotypic heterogeneity.

ABSTRACT: Starvation triggers bacterial spore formation, a committed differentiation program that transforms a vegetative cell into a dormant spore. Cells in a population enter sporulation non-uniformly to secure against the possibility that favorable growth conditions, which puts sporulation-committed cells at a disadvantage, may resume. This heterogeneous behavior is initiated by a passive mechanism: stochastic activation of a master transcriptional regulator. Here, we identify a cell-cell communication pathway that actively promotes phenotypic heterogeneity, wherein Bacillus subtilis cells that start sporulating early utilize a calcineurin-like phosphoesterase to release glycerol, which simultaneously acts as a signaling molecule and a nutrient to delay non-sporulating cells from entering

SUBMITTER: Updegrove TB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11188070 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature