Abstract:Bacterial populations frequently encounter potentially lethal environmental stress factors. Growing Bacillus subtilis populations are comprised of a mixture of “motile” and “sessile” cells but how this affects population-level fitness under stress is poorly understood. Here, we show that, unlike sessile cells, motile cells are readily killed by monovalent cations under conditions of nutrient deprivation – owing to elevated expression of the lytABC operon, which codes for a cell-wall lytic complex. Forced induc… Show more
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