ArticleThe FEBS journal2015
How fast-growing bacteria robustly tune their ribosome concentration to approximate growth-rate maximization.
Article in The FEBS journal, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 117 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
117 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Genome-scale metabolic modeling reveals increased reliance on valine catabolism in clinical isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2022Pooled it
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- Automated high-throughput screening combined with model-assisted analysis enables quantitative identification of process drivers and trade-offs during extracellular Fab production in Escherichia coli.Bioprocess and biosystems engineering · 2026Article
- Quantitative Coarse-Grained Modeling of Microbial Metabolism: Uncovering Growth Laws, Environmental Responses, and Host-Circuit Coupling.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Maintenance of cytoplasmic and membrane densities shapes cellular geometry in Escherichia coli.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The toxic effects of meta-tyrosine are related to its misincorporation into the proteome and to altered metabolism in cyanobacteria.The FEBS journal · 2025Article
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- A mismatch between slow protein synthesis and fast environmental fluctuations determines tradeoffs in bacterial proteome allocation strategies.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Integrated transcriptomics and metabolomics reveal multi-target mechanisms of tannins against Clostridium perfringens and necrotic enteritis.Journal of animal science and biotechnology · 2025Article
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- Tcf4 regulates secretory cell fate decisions in the small intestine and colon tumors: insights from transcriptomic, histological, and microbiome analyses.Stem cell research & therapy · 2025Article
- Exploring Yeast's Energy Dynamics: The General Stress Response Lowers Maintenance Energy Requirement.Microbial biotechnology · 2025Article
- Incoherent feedback from coupled amino acids and ribosome pools generates damped oscillations in growing E. coli.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Review
- Antibiotics change the population growth rate heterogeneity and morphology of bacteria.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- Ribosomes translocation into the spore of Bacillus subtilis is highly organised and requires peptidoglycan rearrangements.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Life history strategies complement niche partitioning to support the coexistence of closely related Gilliamella species in the bee gut.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Single-cell data reveal heterogeneity of investment in ribosomes across a bacterial population.Nature communications · 2025Article
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- At what cost? The impact of bacteriophage resistance on the growth kinetics and protein synthesis of Escherichia coli.Environmental microbiology reports · 2024Article
57 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Maximization of growth rate is an important fitness strategy for bacteria. Bacteria can achieve this by expressing proteins at optimal concentrations, such that resources are not wasted. This is exemplified for Escherichia coli by the increase of its ribosomal protein-fraction with growth rate, which precisely matches the increased protein synthesis demand. These findings and others have led to the hypothesis that E. coli aims to maximize its growth rate in environments that support growth. However, what kind of regulatory strategy is required for a robust, optimal adjustment of the ribosome concentration to the prevailing condition is still an open question. In the present study, we analyze the ppGpp-controlled mechanism of ribosome expression used by E. coli and show that this mechanism maintains the ribosomes saturated with its substrates. In this manner, overexpression of the highly abundant ribosomal proteins is prevented, and limited resources can be redirected to the synthesis of other growth-promoting enzymes. It turns out that the kinetic conditions for robust, optimal protein-partitioning, which are required for growth rate maximization across conditions, can be achieved with basic biochemical interactions. We show that inactive ribosomes are the most suitable 'signal' for tracking the intracellular nutritional state and for adjusting gene expression accordingly, as small deviations from optimal ribosome concentration cause a huge fractional change in ribosome inactivity. We expect to find this control logic implemented across fast-growing microbial species because growth rate maximization is a common selective pressure, ribosomes are typically highly abundant and thus costly, and the required control can be implemented by a small, simple network.
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