Metabolic interactions between dynamic bacterial subpopulations

  1. Adam Z Rosenthal
  2. Yutao Qi
  3. Sahand Hormoz
  4. Jin Park
  5. Sophia Hsin-Jung Li
  6. Michael B Elowitz  Is a corresponding author
  1. California Institute of Technology, United States
  2. Princeton University, United States

Abstract

Individual microbial species are known to occupy distinct metabolic niches within multi-species communities. However, it has remained largely unclear whether metabolic specialization can similarly occur within a clonal bacterial population. More specifically, it is not clear what functions such specialization could provide and how specialization could be coordinated dynamically. Here, we show that exponentially growing Bacillus subtilis cultures divide into distinct interacting metabolic subpopulations, including one population that produces acetate, and another population that differentially expresses metabolic genes for the production of acetoin, a pH-neutral storage molecule. These subpopulations exhibit distinct growth rates and dynamic interconversion between states. Furthermore, acetate concentration influences the relative sizes of the different subpopulations. These results show that clonal populations can use metabolic specialization to control the environment through a process of dynamic, environmentally-sensitive state-switching.

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Author details

  1. Adam Z Rosenthal

    Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6936-3665
  2. Yutao Qi

    Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Sahand Hormoz

    Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Jin Park

    Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Sophia Hsin-Jung Li

    Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8972-6921
  6. Michael B Elowitz

    Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
    For correspondence
    melowitz@caltech.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1221-0967

Funding

National Institute for Health Research (RO1GM079771)

  • Adam Z Rosenthal
  • Yutao Qi
  • Jin Park
  • Michael B Elowitz

DOE Biochronicity (DOE Biochronicity)

  • Adam Z Rosenthal
  • Yutao Qi
  • Jin Park
  • Sophia Hsin-Jung Li

Center for Environmental Microbial Interactions at Caltech

  • Adam Z Rosenthal

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2018, Rosenthal et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Adam Z Rosenthal
  2. Yutao Qi
  3. Sahand Hormoz
  4. Jin Park
  5. Sophia Hsin-Jung Li
  6. Michael B Elowitz
(2018)
Metabolic interactions between dynamic bacterial subpopulations
eLife 7:e33099.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.33099

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.33099

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