ArticleNature chemical biology2025
Community-specific cell death sustains bacterial expansion under phosphorus starvation.
Article in Nature chemical biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Integrated mineralogical, metabolomic, and gene expression analysis of the phosphate-solubilizing mechanism of Pseudomonas sp. PSB-13.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2026Article
- Waterborne pathogen mitigation: Decoding techno-ecological synergies in multiscale transmission networks.Innovation (Cambridge (Mass.)) · 2026Review
- Pseudolysogeny-mediated evolutionary trade-offs favor phage therapy by limiting antibiotic resistance and virulence in Cutibacterium acnes.Scientific reports · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Colony expansion is important for establishing territories. It is unclear to what extent bacteria can maintain colony expansion under nutrient limitation. Here, we found that Escherichia coli biofilms could maintain steady expansion for an extended period of time under severe phosphorus limitation. The expansion was supported by reactive-oxygen-species-mediated cell death within the biofilm. The cell death was spatially separated from the region of growth, resulting in cross-regional recycling of phosphorus from the lysed bacteria. The increase in cell death and the steady growth after phosphorus removal was community specific and was not observed in planktonic bacteria. Lastly, phosphorus had a unique role in the cell-death-mediated nutrient recycling, as the phenomenon described above was not observed under carbon or nitrogen starvation. Our work reveals how bacterial communities use spatially coordinated metabolism to cope with phosphorus limitation, which promotes robust expansion of the bacteria in fluctuating environments.
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Registered trials
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