Cell-to-cell variation and specialization in sugar metabolism in clonal bacterial populations
Nikolic N, Schreiber F, Dal Co A, Kiviet D, Bergmiller T, Littmann S, Kuypers M, Ackermann M. 2017. Cell-to-cell variation and specialization in sugar metabolism in clonal bacterial populations. PLoS Genetics. 13(12), e1007122.
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Author
Nikolic, NelaISTA ;
Schreiber, Frank;
Dal Co, Alma;
Kiviet, Daniel;
Bergmiller, TobiasISTA ;
Littmann, Sten;
Kuypers, Marcel;
Ackermann, Martin
Department
Abstract
While we have good understanding of bacterial metabolism at the population level, we know little about the metabolic behavior of individual cells: do single cells in clonal populations sometimes specialize on different metabolic pathways? Such metabolic specialization could be driven by stochastic gene expression and could provide individual cells with growth benefits of specialization. We measured the degree of phenotypic specialization in two parallel metabolic pathways, the assimilation of glucose and arabinose. We grew Escherichia coli in chemostats, and used isotope-labeled sugars in combination with nanometer-scale secondary ion mass spectrometry and mathematical modeling to quantify sugar assimilation at the single-cell level. We found large variation in metabolic activities between single cells, both in absolute assimilation and in the degree to which individual cells specialize in the assimilation of different sugars. Analysis of transcriptional reporters indicated that this variation was at least partially based on cell-to-cell variation in gene expression. Metabolic differences between cells in clonal populations could potentially reduce metabolic incompatibilities between different pathways, and increase the rate at which parallel reactions can be performed.
Publishing Year
Date Published
2017-12-18
Journal Title
PLoS Genetics
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Volume
13
Issue
12
Article Number
e1007122
ISSN
IST-REx-ID
Cite this
Nikolic N, Schreiber F, Dal Co A, et al. Cell-to-cell variation and specialization in sugar metabolism in clonal bacterial populations. PLoS Genetics. 2017;13(12). doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1007122
Nikolic, N., Schreiber, F., Dal Co, A., Kiviet, D., Bergmiller, T., Littmann, S., … Ackermann, M. (2017). Cell-to-cell variation and specialization in sugar metabolism in clonal bacterial populations. PLoS Genetics. Public Library of Science. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007122
Nikolic, Nela, Frank Schreiber, Alma Dal Co, Daniel Kiviet, Tobias Bergmiller, Sten Littmann, Marcel Kuypers, and Martin Ackermann. “Cell-to-Cell Variation and Specialization in Sugar Metabolism in Clonal Bacterial Populations.” PLoS Genetics. Public Library of Science, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007122.
N. Nikolic et al., “Cell-to-cell variation and specialization in sugar metabolism in clonal bacterial populations,” PLoS Genetics, vol. 13, no. 12. Public Library of Science, 2017.
Nikolic N, Schreiber F, Dal Co A, Kiviet D, Bergmiller T, Littmann S, Kuypers M, Ackermann M. 2017. Cell-to-cell variation and specialization in sugar metabolism in clonal bacterial populations. PLoS Genetics. 13(12), e1007122.
Nikolic, Nela, et al. “Cell-to-Cell Variation and Specialization in Sugar Metabolism in Clonal Bacterial Populations.” PLoS Genetics, vol. 13, no. 12, e1007122, Public Library of Science, 2017, doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1007122.
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