Perspectives

Nature Reviews Microbiology 7, 822-827 (November 2009) | doi:10.1038/nrmicro2202

OpinionMetabolism, cell growth and the bacterial cell cycle

Jue D. Wang1 & Petra A. Levin2  About the authors

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Adaptation to fluctuations in nutrient availability is a fact of life for single-celled organisms in the 'wild'. A decade ago our understanding of how bacteria adjust cell cycle parameters to accommodate changes in nutrient availability stemmed almost entirely from elegant physiological studies completed in the 1960s. In this Opinion article we summarize recent groundbreaking work in this area and discuss potential mechanisms by which nutrient availability and metabolic status are coordinated with cell growth, chromosome replication and cell division.

Author affiliations

  1. Jue D. Wang is at the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
    Email: jdwang@bcm.edu
  2. Petra A. Levin is at the Department of Biology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA.
    Email: plevin@biology.wustl.edu

Published online 6 October 2009

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