ArticlemBio2021
The Dynamic Transition of Persistence toward the Viable but Nonculturable State during Stationary Phase Is Driven by Protein Aggregation.
Article in mBio, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed, 80 citations in OpenAlex.
- Seeing Bacterial Persistence Through Different Experimental Lenses: How Methodology Shapes Biological Interpretation.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Contributions of persisters and the Eagle effect to survival ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Article
- Integrating multi-omics data with network modeling to characterizeJournal of bacteriology · 2026Article
- Stress History Establishes a Transient Tolerant State That Shapes Antibiotic Survival Upon Resuscitation.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Bacterial Sentience Is Determined by the Stochastic, Chaotic, and Deterministic Behavior of Cytoplasmic Particles.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Review
- Mechanism of persister formation in response to nitrogen starvation.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Review
- Antibiotic exposure and recovery of persister states influence virulence phenotypes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.Archives of microbiology · 2026Article
- Glycerol-Driven Energy and Proteostasis Underpin Antibiotic Tolerance inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Beyond metabolic dormancy: metabolic rewiring in bacterial persistence.Nature communications · 2026Review
- Proteostasis-targeted antibacterial strategies.Journal of microbiology (Seoul, Korea) · 2026Review
- Article
- DEAD-box ATPase-marked condensates coordinate compartmentalized translation and antibiotic persistence.Science advances · 2026Article
- Molecular Basis of Persister Awakening and Lag-Phase Recovery inInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Dissecting Bacterial Growth Variants by Cellular Phenotypic Profiling and Backtracing.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Regulatory time-kill sequencing maps antibiotic-specific transcriptional control ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Protein aggregation as a bistable switch in bacterial cell fate: from adaptive dormancy to cytotoxic death.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Phenylacetic acid mediatesMicrobiology (Reading, England) · 2026Article
- Solidification of protein aggregates deepens bacterial dormancy.Trends in microbiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Decades of research into bacterial persistence has been unable to fully characterize this antibiotic-tolerant phenotype, thereby hampering the development of therapies effective against chronic infections. Although some active persister mechanisms have been identified, the prevailing view is that cells become persistent because they enter a dormant state. We therefore characterized starvation-induced dormancy in Escherichia coli. Our findings indicate that dormancy develops gradually; persistence strongly increases during stationary phase and decreases again as persisters enter the viable but nonculturable (VBNC) state. Importantly, we show that dormancy development is tightly associated with progressive protein aggregation, which occurs concomitantly with ATP depletion during starvation. Persisters contain protein aggregates in an early developmental stage, while VBNC cells carry more mature aggregates. Finally, we show that at least one persister protein, ObgE, works by triggering aggregation, even at endogenous levels, and thereby changing the dynamics of persistence and dormancy development. These findings provide evidence for a genetically controlled, gradual development of persisters and VBNC cells through protein aggregation.
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Registered trials
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.