The purpose of sporulation is to produce a largely metabolically inactive dormant cell type called an “endospore” (hereafter, referred to simply as a “spore”) that is able to survive harsh environmental conditions until favorable growth conditions are restored ( Paredes-Sabja et al., 2011). subtilis is able to initiate many survival mechanisms such as motility, uptake of exogenous DNA, biofilm formation and sporulation ( Vlamakis et al., 2013 Rao et al., 2008 Burton and Dubnau, 2010). subtilis is ubiquitous in nature and can successfully adapt to various changes in the environment. As a result, sporulation studies have provided significant insights into basic biological processes such as differential gene expression, membrane remodeling, intercellular communication, subcellular protein localization, and morphogenesis.ī. subtilis is naturally competent and genes necessary for sporulation are often non-essential for normal growth, both of which facilitate the identification of novel factors that participate in this developmental process. subtilis is a particularly attractive system to look at cell differentiation and morphogenesis not only because of the relative simplicity of the sporulation developmental program, but also because of the genetic tractability of the system. During sporulation a single rod-shaped cell divides asymmetrically, resulting in two genetically identical daughter cells that undergo different cell fates ( Stragier and Losick, 1996 Errington, 2003 Piggot and Hilbert, 2004). One approach to this problem has been to study the relatively simple developmental program of endospore formation (“sporulation”) in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis. However, elucidating these mechanisms can be difficult due to the complex and intertwined processes that occur during development ( Sasai, 2013 Hartwell and Weinert, 1989). Understanding the mechanisms that drive cell differentiation and morphogenesis are essential in answering the question of how organisms develop.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |