English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Paper

Catabolism of germinant amino acids is required to prevent premature spore germination in Bacillus subtilis

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons278311

Kasu,  Iqra
IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;
Max Planck Research Group Evolutionary Cell Biology (Lopez Garrido), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons296294

Reyes-Matte,  Octavio
IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;
Max Planck Research Group Evolutionary Cell Biology (Lopez Garrido), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons283101

Bonive-Boscan,  Alejandro
IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;
Max Planck Research Group Evolutionary Cell Biology (Lopez Garrido), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons296291

Derman,  Alan I.
Max Planck Research Group Evolutionary Cell Biology (Lopez Garrido), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons241646

López-Garrido,  Javier       
Max Planck Research Group Evolutionary Cell Biology (Lopez Garrido), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Kasu, I., Reyes-Matte, O., Bonive-Boscan, A., Derman, A. I., & López-Garrido, J. (submitted). Catabolism of germinant amino acids is required to prevent premature spore germination in Bacillus subtilis.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000E-7599-2
Abstract
Spores of Bacillus subtilis germinate in response to specific germinant molecules that are recognized by receptors in the spore envelope. Germinants signal to the dormant spore that the environment can support vegetative growth, so many germinants, such as alanine and valine, are also essential metabolites. As such, they are also required to build the spore. Here we show that these germinants cause premature germination if they are still present at the latter stages of spore formation and beyond, but that B. subtilis metabolism is configured to prevent this: alanine and valine are catabolized and cleared from wild-type cultures even when alternative carbon and nitrogen sources are present. Alanine and valine accumulate in the spent media of mutants that are unable to catabolize these amino acids, and premature germination is pervasive. Premature germination does not occur if the germinant receptor that responds to alanine and valine is eliminated, or if wild-type strains that are able to catabolize and clear alanine and valine are also present in coculture. Our findings demonstrate that spore-forming bacteria must fine-tune the concentration of any metabolite that can also function as a germinant to a level that is high enough to allow for spore development to proceed, but not so high as to promote premature germination. These results indicate that germinant selection and metabolism are tightly linked, and suggest that germinant receptors evolve in tandem with the catabolic priorities of the spore-forming bacterium.