Single-growing units phenotypic heterogeneity in Streptococcus thermophilus DSM20617
1 : Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Alimentari e Microbiologiche
(DiSTAM)
* : Corresponding author
University of Milan
via Mangiagalli 25, 20133 Milan, Italy -
Italy
Microbial cell individuality is a source of phenotypic heterogeneity. This heterogeneity is related to stochastic fluctuations in transcription or translation, despite genetically homogeneous background and constant environment conditions. Heterogeneity at a single-cell level is typically masked in conventional studies of microbial populations, which are based on the average behaviour of thousands or millions of cells. Here we developed a semi-automated protocol to study the growth kinetics parameters of single-growing unit (single cell or single-chain) in the dairy bacterium S. thermophilus. The results obtained revealed an unexpected heterogeneity in the lag-phase and max-velocity showing a modal distribution of the measured values. Lag-phase and max-velocity values have been significantly modified by changing the energetic status of the single-growing units before their transfer into a new medium. The approach developed could be useful to set-up the best environmental perturbations able to reduce or increase the phenotypic single-cell heterogeneity in S. thermophilus population.
| Subject : | : | Oral Presentation |
| Topics | : | Cell Biology |
| Keywords | : | single ; unit ; S. thermophilus ; phenotypic heterogeneity |
| PDF version | : |  PDF version |
