Bacteria have previously been assumed to cope with environmental stress by tuning their total number of active ribosomes. Instead, a study in this issue of Nature Microbiology shows that from a heterogeneous pool of ribosomes, Vibrio vulnificus uses ribosomes with a particular ribosomal RNA variant to translate upregulated stress response mRNAs.
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Leppek, K., Barna, M. An rRNA variant to deal with stress. Nat Microbiol 4, 382–383 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-019-0396-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-019-0396-7