Zambrano M M, Siegele D A, Almirón M, Tormo A, Kolter R
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115.
Science. 1993 Mar 19;259(5102):1757-60. doi: 10.1126/science.7681219.
Many microorganisms, including Escherichia coli, can survive extended periods of starvation. The properties of cells that survived prolonged incubation in stationary phase were studied by mixture of 10-day-old (aged) cultures with 1-day-old (young) cultures of the same strain of Escherichia coli. Mutants from the aged cultures that could grow eventually took over the population, which resulted in the death of the cells from the young cultures. This phenotype was conferred by mutations in rpoS, which encodes a putative stationary phase-specific sigma factor. These rapid population shifts have implications for the studies of microbial evolution and ecology.
包括大肠杆菌在内的许多微生物都能在长时间饥饿状态下存活。通过将同一株大肠杆菌10日龄（老化）培养物与1日龄（年轻）培养物混合，研究了在稳定期长时间培养后存活细胞的特性。来自老化培养物的最终能够生长的突变体占据了种群，导致年轻培养物中的细胞死亡。这种表型是由编码假定的稳定期特异性σ因子的rpoS基因突变赋予的。这些快速的种群变化对微生物进化和生态学研究具有重要意义。
