Pneumococcal Competence Coordination Relies on a Cell-Contact Sensing Mechanism.

ABSTRACT: Bacteria have evolved various inducible genetic programs to face many types of stress that challenge their growth and survival. Competence is one such program. It enables genetic transformation, a major horizontal gene transfer process. Competence development in liquid cultures of Streptococcus pneumoniae is synchronized within the whole cell population. This collective behavior is known to depend on an exported signaling Competence Stimulating Peptide (CSP), whose action generates a positive feedback loop. However, it is unclear how this CSP-dependent population switch is coordinated. By monitoring spontaneous competence development in real time during growth of four distinct pneumococcal lineages, we have found that competence shift in the population relies on a self-activated cell fract

SUBMITTER: Prudhomme M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4927155 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature