Morphological plasticity of bacteria—Open questions
| Autor: | Jie-Pan Shen, Chia-Fu Chou |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
0301 basic medicine
Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes education.field_of_study Cell morphogenesis Effector 030106 microbiology Population Biomedical Engineering Morphogenesis Plasticity Biology Condensed Matter Physics Cell morphology Cell biology 03 medical and health sciences Colloid and Surface Chemistry General Materials Science Epigenetics education Bacterial morphological plasticity Review Articles |
| Popis: | Morphological plasticity of bacteria is a cryptic phenomenon, by which bacteria acquire adaptive benefits for coping with changing environments. Some environmental cues were identified to induce morphological plasticity, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. Physical and chemical factors causing morphological changes in bacteria have been investigated and mostly associated with potential pathways linked to the cell wall synthetic machinery. These include starvation, oxidative stresses, predation effectors, antimicrobial agents, temperature stresses, osmotic shock, and mechanical constraints. In an extreme scenario of morphological plasticity, bacteria can be induced to be shapeshifters when the cell walls are defective or deficient. They follow distinct developmental pathways and transform into assorted morphological variants, and most of them would eventually revert to typical cell morphology. It is suggested that phenotypic heterogeneity might play a functional role in the development of morphological diversity and/or plasticity within an isogenic population. Accordingly, phenotypic heterogeneity and inherited morphological plasticity are found to be survival strategies adopted by bacteria in response to environmental stresses. Here, microfluidic and nanofabrication technology is considered to provide versatile solutions to induce morphological plasticity, sort and isolate morphological variants, and perform single-cell analysis including transcriptional and epigenetic profiling. Questions such as how morphogenesis network is modulated or rewired (if epigenetic controls of cell morphogenesis apply) to induce bacterial morphological plasticity could be resolved with the aid of micro-nanofluidic platforms and optimization algorithms, such as feedback system control. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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