Die for the community: an overview of programmed cell death in bacteria

Programmed cell death is a process known to have a crucial role in many aspects of eukaryotes physiology and is clearly essential to their life. As a consequence, the underlying molecular mechanisms have been extensively studied in eukaryotes and we now know that different signalling pathways leading to functionally and morphologically different forms of death exist in these organisms. Similarly, mono-cellular organism can activate signalling pathways leading to death of a number of cells within a colony. The reason why a single-cell organism would activate a program leading to its death is apparently counterintuitive and probably for this reason cell death in prokaryotes has received a lot less attention in the past years. However, as summarized in this review there are many reasons leading to prokaryotic cell death, for the benefit of the colony. Indeed, single-celled organism can greatly benefit from multicellular organization. Within this forms of organization, regulation of death becomes an important issue, contributing to important processes such as: stress response, development, genetic transformation, and biofilm formation.