ArticlePLoS biology2018
Protein aggregates encode epigenetic memory of stressful encounters in individual Escherichia coli cells.
Article in PLoS biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers.
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79 citing papers in PubMed, 124 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Robust antibiotic sensitization of pathogenic Pseudomonas aeruginosa via negative hysteresis in the cell envelope.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Engineering non-exponential proliferation in Escherichia coli using functionalized protein aggregates.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The Synergy between a Silver-Ruthenium Antimicrobial and aminoglycosides is based on severe macromolecular damage.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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- Growth-rate dependent response of mycobacteria to relief of inhibition by a bacteriostatic antibiotic.FEMS microbiology letters · 2026Article
- Protein aggregation as a bistable switch in bacterial cell fate: from adaptive dormancy to cytotoxic death.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Exploring the concept of bacterial memory.Nature microbiology · 2025Review
- TrackRefiner a tool for refinement of bacillus cell tracking data.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2025Article
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- Engineering Spatial Control of Bacterial Organelles.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
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- A palette of bright and photostable monomeric fluorescent proteins for bacterial time-lapse imaging.Science advances · 2025Article
- Composition and liquid-to-solid maturation of protein aggregates contribute to bacterial dormancy development and recovery.Nature communications · 2025Article
- A Novel Silver-Ruthenium-Based Antimicrobial Kills Gram-Negative Bacteria Through Oxidative Stress-Induced Macromolecular Damage.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Protein misfolding and aggregation are typically perceived as inevitable and detrimental processes tied to a stress- or age-associated decline in cellular proteostasis. A careful reassessment of this paradigm in the E. coli model bacterium revealed that the emergence of intracellular protein aggregates (PAs) was not related to cellular aging but closely linked to sublethal proteotoxic stresses such as exposure to heat, peroxide, and the antibiotic streptomycin. After removal of the proteotoxic stress and resumption of cellular proliferation, the polarly deposited PA was subjected to limited disaggregation and therefore became asymmetrically inherited for a large number of generations. Many generations after the original PA-inducing stress, the cells inheriting this ancestral PA displayed a significantly increased heat resistance compared to their isogenic, PA-free siblings. This PA-mediated inheritance of heat resistance could be reproduced with a conditionally expressed, intracellular PA consisting of an inert, aggregation-prone mutant protein, validating the role of PAs in increasing resistance and indicating that the resistance-conferring mechanism does not depend on the origin of the PA. Moreover, PAs were found to confer robustness to other proteotoxic stresses, as imposed by reactive oxygen species or streptomycin exposure, suggesting a broad protective effect. Our findings therefore reveal the potential of intracellular PAs to serve as long-term epigenetically inheritable and functional memory elements, physically referring to a previous cellular insult that occurred many generations ago and meanwhile improving robustness to a subsequent proteotoxic stress. The latter is presumably accomplished through the PA-mediated asymmetric inheritance of protein quality control components leading to their specific enrichment in PA-bearing cells.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.