Metabolic Control of Cell Elongation and Cell Division in Bacillus subtilis.

Anne Galinier,Frédérique Pompeo,Elodie Foulquier

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.697930

Abstract

To survive and adapt to changing nutritional conditions, bacteria must rapidly modulate cell cycle processes, such as doubling time or cell size. Recent data have revealed that cellular metabolism is a central regulator of bacterial cell cycle. Indeed, proteins that can sense precursors or metabolites or enzymes, in addition to their enzymatic activities involved in metabolism, were shown to directly control cell cycle processes in response to changes in nutrient levels. Here we focus on cell elongation and cell division in the Gram-positive rod-shaped bacterium Bacillus subtilis and we report evidences linking these two cellular processes to environmental nutritional availability and thus metabolic cellular status.

Highlights

To survive in their environment, bacteria have to rapidly adapt to nutrient availability
This observation suggests that cell cycle processes like cell length doubling, duplication separation of DNA, and cell division are highly linked to central metabolism to ensure a viable progeny (Sperber and Herman, 2017)
We describe metabolic proteins that regulate cell elongation and cell division depending on growth conditions in the Gram-positive rodshaped bacterium B. subtilis

Summary

Introduction

To survive in their environment, bacteria have to rapidly adapt to nutrient availability. We describe metabolic proteins that regulate cell elongation (and cell shape) and cell division depending on growth conditions in the Gram-positive rodshaped bacterium B. subtilis. The authors observed that the addition of fluidizer is able to restore MreB dynamics and a normal cell shape to fast growing B. subtilis mutant cells that lack flotillins.

Results

Conclusion