Spore Formation and Germination: New Insights and Opportunities for Intervention.

Spore formation and germination are essential for the bacterial pathogen to transmit infection. Despite the importance of these developmental processes to the infection cycle of , the molecular mechanisms underlying how this obligate anaerobe forms infectious spores and how these spores germinate to initiate infection were largely unknown until recently. Work in the last decade has revealed that uses a distinct mechanism for sensing and transducing germinant signals relative to previously characterized spore formers. The spore assembly pathway also exhibits notable differences relative to spp., where spore formation has been more extensively studied. For both these processes, factors that are conserved only in or the related family are employed, and even highly conserved spore proteins can have differential functions or requirements in compared to other spore formers. This review summarizes our current understanding of the mechanisms controlling spore formation and germination and describes strategies for inhibiting these processes to prevent infection and disease recurrence.