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Sporulating bacteria prefers predation to cannibalism in mixed cultures

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Title Sporulating bacteria prefers predation to cannibalism in mixed cultures
 
Creator NANDY, SUBIR KUMAR
BAPAT, PRASHANT M
VENKATESH, KV
 
Subject microorganisms
ecosystems
cell
escherichia coli
 
Description Predatory behavior, a property associated with ecosystems, is not commonly observed in microorganisms. However, cannibalistic tendencies have been observed in microorganisms under stress. For example, pure culture of Bacillus subtilis exhibits cannibalism under nutrient limitation. It has been proposed that a fraction of cells in the population produce Spo0A, a regulatory protein that is responsible for delaying sporulation. Cells containing spo0A would produce a killing factor by activating skf operon and an associated pump to export the factor. Cells that do not contain spo0A in the population are lysed. However in addition to the competition among the cells of B. subtilis, these cells also compete with other organisms for the limited nutrients. In this work, we report the cannibalistic behavior of B. subtilis in presence of Escherichia coli under severe nutritional limitation. We demonstrate that B. subtilis lyses cells of E. coli using an antibacterial factor under the regulation of Spo0A. Our experiments also suggest that B. subtilis prefers predation of E. coli to cannibalism in mixed cultures. B. subtilis also demonstrated predation in mixed cultures with other soil microorganisms, such as, Xanthomonas campestris, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobactor lwoffi. This may offer B. subtilis a niche to survive in an environment with limited nutrients and under competition from other microorganisms.
 
Publisher Elsevier
 
Date 2009-03-09T07:46:08Z
2011-11-25T18:55:43Z
2011-12-26T13:06:50Z
2011-12-27T05:54:48Z
2009-03-09T07:46:08Z
2011-11-25T18:55:43Z
2011-12-26T13:06:50Z
2011-12-27T05:54:48Z
2007
 
Type Article
 
Identifier FEBS Letters 581(1), 151-156
0014-5793
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.febslet.2006.12.011
http://hdl.handle.net/10054/914
http://dspace.library.iitb.ac.in/xmlui/handle/10054/914
 
Language en