Molecular Systems Biology, Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
Molecular Systems Biology, Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
Curr Opin Microbiol. 2018 Oct;45:30-38. doi: 10.1016/j.mib.2018.02.004. Epub 2018 Feb 22.
In the past decades, numerous instances of phenotypic diversity were observed in clonal microbial populations, particularly, on the gene expression level. Much less is, however, known about phenotypic differences that occur on the level of metabolism. This is likely explained by the fact that experimental tools probing metabolism of single cells are still at an early stage of development. Here, we review recent exciting discoveries that point out different causes for metabolic heterogeneity within clonal microbial populations. These causes range from ecological factors and cell-inherent dynamics in constant environments to molecular noise in gene expression that propagates into metabolism. Furthermore, we provide an overview of current methods to quantify the levels of metabolites and biomass components in single cells.
在过去的几十年中，人们在克隆微生物群体中观察到了许多表型多样性的例子，尤其是在基因表达水平上。然而，对于代谢水平上出现的表型差异却知之甚少。这很可能是因为探测单细胞代谢的实验工具仍处于早期发展阶段。在这里，我们回顾了最近令人兴奋的发现，这些发现指出了克隆微生物群体中代谢异质性的不同原因。这些原因包括生态因素和恒定环境中的细胞固有动力学，以及基因表达中的分子噪声，这些噪声会传播到代谢中。此外，我们还概述了目前用于量化单细胞中代谢物和生物量成分水平的方法。
