TY - JOUR
T1 - The physiology of growth arrest
T2 - Uniting molecular and environmental microbiology
AU - Bergkessel, Megan
AU - Basta, David W.
AU - Newman, Dianne K.
PY - 2016/9
Y1 - 2016/9
N2 - Most bacteria spend the majority of their time in prolonged states of very low metabolic activity and little or no growth, in which electron donors, electron acceptors and/or nutrients are limited, but cells are poised to undergo rapid division cycles when resources become available. These non-growing states are far less studied than other growth states, which leaves many questions regarding basic bacterial physiology unanswered. In this Review, we discuss findings from a small but diverse set of systems that have been used to investigate how growth-arrested bacteria adjust metabolism, regulate transcription and translation, and maintain their chromosomes. We highlight major questions that remain to be addressed, and suggest that progress in answering them will be aided by recent methodological advances and by dialectic between environmental and molecular microbiology perspectives.
AB - Most bacteria spend the majority of their time in prolonged states of very low metabolic activity and little or no growth, in which electron donors, electron acceptors and/or nutrients are limited, but cells are poised to undergo rapid division cycles when resources become available. These non-growing states are far less studied than other growth states, which leaves many questions regarding basic bacterial physiology unanswered. In this Review, we discuss findings from a small but diverse set of systems that have been used to investigate how growth-arrested bacteria adjust metabolism, regulate transcription and translation, and maintain their chromosomes. We highlight major questions that remain to be addressed, and suggest that progress in answering them will be aided by recent methodological advances and by dialectic between environmental and molecular microbiology perspectives.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84982161839&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/nrmicro.2016.107
DO - 10.1038/nrmicro.2016.107
M3 - Review article
C2 - 27510862
AN - SCOPUS:84982161839
VL - 14
SP - 549
EP - 562
JO - Nature Reviews Microbiology
JF - Nature Reviews Microbiology
SN - 1740-1526
IS - 9
ER -