Heterogeneity in Bacterial Specialized Metabolism

Nicholas J Tobias; Helge B Bode

doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2019.04.042

Heterogeneity in Bacterial Specialized Metabolism

J Mol Biol. 2019 Nov 22;431(23):4589-4598. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2019.04.042. Epub 2019 May 6.

Authors

Nicholas J Tobias¹, Helge B Bode²

Affiliations

¹ Fachbereich Biowissenschaften, Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
² Fachbereich Biowissenschaften, Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (BMLS), Goethe Universität Frankfurt, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Electronic address: h.bode@bio.uni-frankfurt.de.

PMID: 31071325
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2019.04.042

Abstract

Specialized metabolites (SMs) like typical antibiotics, signaling molecules or other bioactive compounds of bacterial origin (sometimes also used in human therapy) are often complex natural products that are costly for the cell to make. Several bacterial taxa are known to produce multiple SM classes in parallel and therefore a division of labor within a clonal population of bacteria might be beneficial. In this review, examples of SM of gram-negative and gram-positive bacterial taxa that are produced by different cell types are presented, and the possibility that such a heterogeneity is more widespread in SM biosynthesis is discussed. In addition, tools to study SM production at the single cell level are presented.

Keywords: bacterial communication; natural product; phenotypic heterogeneity; quorum sensing; secondary metabolism.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Bacteria / metabolism*
Bacterial Physiological Phenomena
Biological Variation, Population*
Energy Metabolism*
Humans
Phenotype
Quorum Sensing