title: Bacterial persistence from a system-level perspective.
abstract: In recent years, our understanding about bacterial persistence has significantly advanced: we comprehend the persister phenotype better, more triggers for persistence entry have been found, and more insights in the involvement and role of toxin-antitoxin systems and other molecular mechanisms have been unravelled. In this review, we attempt to put these findings into an integrated, system-level perspective. From this point of view, persistence can be seen as a response to a strong perturbation of metabolic homeostasis, either triggered environmentally, or by means of intracellular stochasticity. Metabolic-flux-regulated resource allocation ensures stress protection, and several feedback mechanisms stabilize the cells in this protected state. We hope that this novel view can advance our understanding about persistence.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Systems Biology, Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jakub Leszek
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Radzikowski
authors.affiliation: Molecular Systems Biology, Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schramke
authors.affiliation: Molecular Systems Biology, Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: m.heinemann@rug.nl.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Heinemann
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism*; D064688:Metabolic Flux Analysis; D010641:Phenotype; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods*