Redox-Based Regulation of Bacterial Development and Behavior

Abstract

Severe changes in the environmental redox potential, and resulting alterations in the oxidation states of intracellular metabolites and enzymes, have historically been considered negative stressors, requiring responses that are strictly defensive. However, recent work in diverse organisms has revealed that more subtle changes in the intracellular redox state can act as signals, eliciting responses with benefits beyond defense and detoxification. Changes in redox state have been shown to influence or trigger chromosome segregation, sporulation, aerotaxis, and social behaviors, including luminescence as well as biofilm establishment and dispersal. Connections between redox state and complex behavior allow bacteria to link developmental choices with metabolic state and coordinate appropriate responses. Promising future directions for this area of study include metabolomic analysis of species- and condition-dependent changes in metabolite oxidation states and elucidation of the mechanisms whereby the redox state influences circadian regulation.

Navigating the Valley of Death: Perceptions of Industry and Academia on Production Platforms and Opportunities

“…Basic principles observed and reported 2 Technology concept and/or application formulated 3 Analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof-of-concept 4 Component validation in laboratory environment 5 Component validation in relevant environment 6 System/subsystem model or prototype demonstration in relevant environment 7 System prototype demonstration in relevant environment 8 Actual system completed and qualified through test and demonstration 9 Actual system proven through successful operation However, as heavily as the current biotechnology industry depends on production by microbes, produc-tion methods are by far not as stable as desired due to the biological variability of micro-organisms [13]. Many external factors affect the production capacity of micro-organisms, including temperature, pH, oxygen, ion and carbon source availability, cell density, and biofilm formation [14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]. All factors combined, this often results in a high variability in yield or product profile.…”

Development of a standardized method to evaluate the protective efficiency of cosmetic packaging against microbial contamination

“…Starting from the composition of the Zwisler laboratorium® medium, we performed a series of tests to develop a medium with bacteriostatic activity on P. aeruginosa that lasted for more than one week using media with the basic formula: The principal bacteriostatic agents tested are presented in Figure 2. Hydrochloric, citric, and sorbic acid were tested based on the hypothesis that a decrease in pH affects the growth of P. aeruginosa (Sporer al ., 2017). Boric acid was tested as, in addition to its acidifying effect, borate ions can also affect bacterial growth (Lum & Meers, 1989).…”

Modeling the Pseudomonas Sulfur Regulome by Quantifying the Storage and Communication of Information

“…Glutathione is known to have multiple roles in redox signaling, protection from various stresses, and posttranslational modification of proteins in Proteobacteria (28,29), including Pseudomonas. These roles may be indirectly related to the utilization by cells of glutathione as a sulfur nutrient and may not be apparent in the data collected from our simple experimental design, which did not include redox stress.…”