Bacterial Dormancy: How to Decide When to Wake Up.
Many bacteria form metabolically inactive spores to survive harsh conditions. But how do spores decide to germinate when sensing of the environment is hampered by their inactivity? A new study shows how phenotypic variation leads to stochastic germination of spores.
Department of Environmental Systems Sciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich 8006, Switzerland and Department of Environmental Microbiology, Eawag, Dübendorf 8600, Switzerland. Electronic address: simon.vanvliet@eawag.ch.
Simon
S
van Vliet
D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000502:physiology*; D014644:Genetic Variation