Protein aggregates encode epigenetic memory of stressful encounters in individual Escherichia coli cells.

ABSTRACT: Protein misfolding and aggregation are typically perceived as inevitable and detrimental processes tied to a stress- or age-associated decline in cellular proteostasis. A careful reassessment of this paradigm in the E. coli model bacterium revealed that the emergence of intracellular protein aggregates (PAs) was not related to cellular aging but closely linked to sublethal proteotoxic stresses such as exposure to heat, peroxide, and the antibiotic streptomycin. After removal of the proteotoxic stress and resumption of cellular proliferation, the polarly deposited PA was subjected to limited disaggregation and therefore became asymmetrically inherited for a large number of generations. Many generations after the original PA-inducing stress, the cells inheriting this ancestral PA displayed a

SUBMITTER: Govers SK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6112618 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature