Bacterial metabolism during starvation

Much of the evolutionary history of microbes is spent not growing, or in stationary phase. If some nutrients are present in the environment, but are not sufficient to sustain growth, the cell has to make a key decision: whether to run its metabolism to harvest the available energy, or to go into a more inert state. Victor Chubukov and Uwe Sauer from IMSB characterized the response to a variety of growth-inhibiting conditions in the model bacteria E. coli and B. subtilis, and found that the extent to which they use their metabolism depends strongly on the precise way that growth is limited. The work paves the way for engineering cells that continuously run active metabolism despite not growing, which would be a major breakthrough for industrial biotechnology.

Reference: Chubukov V, Sauer U. Environmental Dependence of Stationary-Phase Metabolism in Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2014 May;80(9):2901-9. external page DOI