Translations:Sporulation in Bacillus subtilis/3/en

Commitment to sporulation

Although sporulation in B. subtilis is induced by starvation, the sporulation developmental program is not initiated immediately when growth slows due to nutrient limitation. A variety of alternative responses can occur, including the activation of flagellar motility to seek new food sources by chemotaxis, the production of antibiotics to destroy competing soil microbes, the secretion of hydrolytic enzymes to scavenge extracellular proteins and polysaccharides, or the induction of ‘competence’ for uptake of exogenous DNA for consumption, with the occasional side-effect that new genetic information is stably integrated. Sporulation is the last-ditch response to starvation and is suppressed until alternative responses prove inadequate. Even then, certain conditions must be met such as chromosome integrity, the state of chromosomal replication, and the functioning of the Krebs cycle.