One gene, multiple ecological strategies: A biofilm regulator is a capacitor for sustainable diversity.

ABSTRACT: Many bacteria cycle between sessile and motile forms in which they must sense and respond to internal and external signals to coordinate appropriate physiology. Maintaining fitness requires genetic networks that have been honed in variable environments to integrate these signals. The identity of the major regulators and how their control mechanisms evolved remain largely unknown in most organisms. During four different evolution experiments with the opportunist betaproteobacterium Burkholderia cenocepacia in a biofilm model, mutations were most frequently selected in the conserved gene rpfR RpfR uniquely integrates two major signaling systems-quorum sensing and the motile-sessile switch mediated by cyclic-di-GMP-by two domains that sense, respond to, and control the synthesis

SUBMITTER: Mhatre E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7474642 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature