title: Rethinking the Hierarchy of Sugar Utilization in Bacteria.
abstract: Bacteria are known to consume some sugars over others, although recent work reported by Koirala and colleagues in this issue of the Journal of Bacteriology (S. Koirala, X. Wang, and C. V. Rao, J Bacteriol 198:386-393, 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/JB.00709-15) revealed that individual cells do not necessarily follow this hierarchy. By studying the preferential consumption of l-arabinose over d-xylose in Escherichia coli, those authors found that subpopulations consume one, the other, or both sugars through cross-repression between utilization pathways. Their findings challenge classic assertions about established hierarchies and can guide efforts to engineer the simultaneous utilization of multiple sugars.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA cbeisel@ncsu.edu.
authors.forename: Chase L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Beisel
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.
authors.forename: Taliman
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Afroz
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism*; D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D002241:Carbohydrates / Q000145:classification*; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
chemical_list: D002241:Carbohydrates