Metabolic differentiation and intercellular nurturing underpin bacterial endospore formation.

Despite intensive research, the role of metabolism in bacterial sporulation remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that sporulation entails a marked metabolic differentiation of the two cells comprising the sporangium: the forespore, which becomes the dormant spore, and the mother cell, which dies as sporulation completes. Our data provide evidence that metabolic precursor biosynthesis becomes restricted to the mother cell and that the forespore becomes reliant on mother cell-derived metabolites for protein synthesis.

Bacterial-fungal interactions revealed by genome-wide analysis of bacterial mutant fitness.

Microbial interactions are expected to be major determinants of microbiome structure and function. Although fungi are found in diverse microbiomes, their interactions with bacteria remain largely uncharacterized. In this work, we characterize interactions in 16 different bacterial-fungal pairs, examining the impacts of 8 different fungi isolated from cheese rind microbiomes on 2 bacteria (Escherichia coli and a cheese-isolated Pseudomonas psychrophila).

Rapid Inhibition Profiling Identifies a Keystone Target in the Nucleotide Biosynthesis Pathway.

Understanding the mechanism of action (MOA) of new antimicrobial agents is a critical step in drug discovery but is notoriously difficult for compounds that appear to inhibit multiple cellular pathways. We recently described image-based approaches [bacterial cytological profiling and rapid inducible profiling (RIP)] for identifying the cellular pathways targeted by antibiotics. Here we have applied these methods to examine the effects of proteolytically degrading enzymes involved in pyrimidine nucleotide biosynthesis, a pathway that produces intermediates for transcription, DNA replication, and cell envelope synthesis.