Bacterial Stationary Phase Transition and Stress Adaptation: A Matter of Survival?
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Microbiology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2020) | Viewed by 7973
Special Issue Editors
Interests: bacterial response to stress; lactic acid bacteria; degradation of toxic pollutants; Actinobacteria; Corynebacteriales; cell surface biology; probiotics
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The bacterial stationary phase is often regarded as a less active period of the growth cycle, which is associated with the transition into a dormant state in which the population’s numbers do not increase and in which cell division is balanced by cell death. However, this is far from the biochemical and regulatory reality of this phase of bacterial life, as cells close down pathways that are linked with logarithmic growth and induce a suite of new pathways that support survival or movement towards cell death for some members of the population. The associated mechanisms may include cell differentiation, modification of cell structures, and sporulation or entry into viable, non-culturable states. The stationary phase is often triggered by nutrient starvation, particularly lack of availability of essential carbon and nitrogen sources, accumulation of toxic end-products, or exposure to stressors, which inhibit further cell division and prematurely induce the onset of the stationary phase. While laboratory culture media provide all nutrients for growth, in natural ecosystems, bacteria are often in nutrient-poor environments where competition for essential nutrients occurs, together with exposure to assaults from anti-microbial agents produced by organisms sharing the same ecosystem or from host cells in the case of pathogenesis.
There is a long history of studies on the idiophase (the period of transition from log growth to the stationary phase, when cells switch from primary to secondary metabolite biosynthesis) in Actinobacteria, Escherichia coli, and Bacillus species, particularly due to the biotechnological importance of secondary metabolites and storage polymers synthesized during the stationary phase. These products include (for example) the following: antibiotics, anti-cancer drugs, and other bioactive compounds; triacylglycerols, polyhydroxyalkanoates, and other feedstocks for biofuels; and enzymes important in food manufacture and industrial processing. Alterations in surface polymers influence biofilm formation, which impacts the survival of microbial communities and resistance to antibiotics and chemical descaling agents in manufacturing processes, as well as in bacterial diseases. Furthermore, the ability to survive for long periods in a ‘quiescent’ state is medically important, as exemplified by the intracellular survival of mycobacterial species during long-term infections. Understanding the genetics, biochemistry, and regulation of the transition into the stationary phase and long-term survival in non-growing states can assist in identifying novel antimicrobials, targets for vaccine development, and antimicrobials for recalcitrant infections, as well as underpinning our understanding of sustainability in complex microbial ecosystems where populations are largely uncultured species.
With the rapid increase in the number of bacterial genomes sequenced and bioinformatic analytical tools, new knowledge of how cells survive in adverse environments is also rapidly emerging.
The aim of this Special Issue is to provide a useful reference tool on the mechanisms underpinning the transition into the stationary phase across bacterial genera to summarize the common and divergent strategies used by bacteria from diverse environments and how this knowledge can be exploited for biotechnological and medical benefit.
Dedication: I would like to honor Dr Wilkinson for his outstanding reputation as a teacher—we so often honor researchers but forget that training and encouraging the next innovators in microbiology is equally important (and often has a more pervasive impact). He had an outstanding mind but circumstances at UniMelb meant he took up a large teaching load to free up other staff to undertake research. He was a lovely person, which counts for a lot in life.
Prof. Margaret L. Britz
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- stationary phase
- idiophase
- stress responses
- biofilms
- secondary metabolites
- cell survival
