Coordination of DNA replication with cellular development is a crucial problem in most living organisms. Bacillus subtilis cells switch from vegetative growth to sporulation when starved. Sporulation normally occurs in cells that have stopped replicating DNA and have two completed chromosomes: one destined for the prespore and the other for the mother cell. It has long been recognized that ther...

Rap phosphatases are a recently discovered family of protein aspartate phosphatases that dephosphorylate the Spo0F--P intermediate of the phosphorelay, thus preventing sporulation of Bacillus subtilis. They are regulators induced by physiological processes that are antithetical to sporulation. The RapA phosphatase is induced by the ComP-ComA two-component signal transduction system responsible ...

The RNA polymerase sigma factor SigF controls late development during sporulation in the filamentous bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor. The only known SigF-dependent gene identified so far, SCO5321, is found in the biosynthetic cluster encoding spore pigment synthesis. Here we identify the first direct target for SigF, the gene sspA, encoding a sporulation-specific protein. Bioinformatic analys...

The purpose of this study was to determine if the probiotic bacterium, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, generates compounds that affect the sporulation of the oocysts of three species of Eimeria using an in vitro assay. In addition, anticoccidial effects of L. rhamnosus cell-free supernatant (CFS)-based diets were evaluated in chickens following experimental infection with Eimeria tenella and the antic...

AIM Understanding the basis for the heterogeneous (or bistable) expression patterns of competence development and sporulation in Bacillus subtilis. METHODS AND RESULTS Using flow cytometric analyses of various promoter-GFP fusions, we have determined the single-cell gene expression patterns of competence development and initiation of sporulation in a chemically defined medium (CDM) and in bio...

The capacity to form endospores is unique to certain members of the low-G+C group of Gram-positive bacteria (Firmicutes) and requires signature sporulation genes that are highly conserved across members of distantly related genera, such as Clostridium and Bacillus. Using gene conservation among endospore-forming bacteria, we identified eight previously uncharacterized genes that are enriched am...

During spore formation in Bacillus subtilis, cell division occurs at the cell pole and is believed to require essentially the same division machinery as vegetative division. Intriguingly, although the cell division protein DivIB is not required for vegetative division at low temperatures, it is essential for efficient sporulation under these conditions. We show here that at low temperatures in ...

Using network theory on an integrated time-resolved genome-wide gene expression data, we investigated the intricate dynamic regulatory relationships of transcription factors and target genes to unravel signatures that contribute to extreme phenotypic differences in yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We performed a comparative analysis of the gene expression profiles of two yeast strains SK1 and S...

Spore formation by Bacillus subtilis is governed by global changes in gene transcription. We used nylon-substrate DNA arrays representing approximately 96% of the predicted open reading frames in the B. subtilis chromosome to compare the pattern of transcripts from wild-type cells with the pattern from cells mutant for the sporulation transcription factors Spo0A or final sigma(F). We found 520 ...

The filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans contains a cluster of 25 genes that encode enzymes required to synthesize a toxic and carcinogenic secondary metabolite called sterigmatocystin (ST), a precursor of the better known fungal toxin aflatoxin (AF). One ST Cluster (stc) gene, aflR, functions as a pathway-specific transcriptional regulator for activation of other genes in the ST pathway. Ho...