Figures
Figure 1

Distinct metabolic pathways in a population of bacteria.
Schematic showing the two subpopulations of B. subtilis seen in the experiments of Rosenthal et al. At the start of the experiment (left) an individual bacterium (grey) grown on glucose and malate divides to give rise to a clonal population. After three hours, some of the cells (shown in red) start to secrete acetate (purple shadow). After six hours, acetate has accumulated to a toxic level, and a second phenotypic subpopulation emerges: the bacteria in this second subpopulation (green) take up the acetate and convert it to acetoin, which is nontoxic. After nine hours, acetate has dropped to a level that is non-toxic.
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