The medium is the message: interspecies and interkingdom signaling by peptidoglycan and related bacterial glycans.
Peptidoglycan serves as a key structure of the bacterial cell by determining cell shape and providing resistance to internal turgor pressure. However, in addition to these essential and well-studied functions, bacterial signaling by peptidoglycan fragments, or muropeptides, has been demonstrated by recent work. Actively growing bacteria release muropeptides as a consequence of cell wall remodeling during elongation and division. Therefore, the presence of muropeptide synthesis is indicative of growth-promoting conditions and may serve as a broadly conserved signal for nongrowing cells to reinitiate growth. In addition, muropeptides serve as signals between bacteria and eukaryotic organisms during both pathogenic and symbiotic interactions. The increasingly appreciated role of the microbiota in metazoan organisms suggests that muropeptide signaling likely has important implications for homeostatic mammalian physiology.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032; email: jonathan.dworkin@columbia.edu.
Jonathan
J
Dworkin
D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D010457:Peptidoglycan / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D015398:Signal Transduction
D010457:Peptidoglycan; D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial
LysM domains; PASTA domains; metabolic quiescence; quorum sensing