Special Seminar - Javier Lopez-Garrido: Metabolic principles of immortality: metabolic differentiation and intercellular nourishment during bacterial endospore formation
- Date: Aug 10, 2018
- Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Javier Lopez-Garrido from the University of California, San Diego, USA
- Location: MPI Plön
- Room: Lecture hall
- Host: Paul Rainey
Abstract:
Bacterial endospores are
the most resilient
cell-types known. Their resiliency relies on the achievement
of a metabolically
dormant state through a developmental process that requires the
participation of only two cells: the forespore, which
becomes the metabolically
dormant endospore, and the mother cell, which dies after
sporulation. Using a
combination of synthetic, cell and
chemical biology, we describe that endospore formation in Bacillus subtilis entails a nourishing
relationship between the
mother cell and the forespore. While both cells synthesize
proteins
throughout sporulation, the forespore rapidly downregulates
its own central
metabolism and several anabolic pathways, becoming dependent
on mother
cell-derived metabolic precursors for protein synthesis. We
provide evidence that the mother cell feeds the
forespore by transferring metabolic precursors via Q-A
channels connecting the
cytoplasms of the two cells. Our
findings suggest that metabolic
differentiation and intercellular
nourishment underpin the gradual transition of the forespore
to a metabolically
dormant state.