Alternative scenarios of starvation-induced adaptation in Pectobacterium atrosepticum

Bacteria have high adaptive potential that ensures their survival during various environmental challenges. To adapt, bacteria activate a physiological program of stress response that makes them able to persist under adverse conditions. The present study sought to examine the ability of a particular bacterial species to induce a stress response in alternative scenarios. Cells of the phytopathogenic microorganism Pectobacterium atrosepticum were taken as a model. The cells were exposed to starvation in different physiological states (actively growing exponential phase and stationary phase cells), and the resulting starving cultures were monitored using CFU counting, quantitative PCR and electron microscopy. When exponential phase cells were subjected to starvation, the nucleoids of the cells became condensed and their DNA was detected by qPCR less effectively than that of cells growing in nutrient-rich medium, or stationary phase cells after starvation. Exponential phase cells subjected to starvation showed increased expression of genes encoding DNA binding histone-like proteins, whereas, in cultures inoculated by stationary phase cells, cell-wall-deficient forms that were inefficient at colony forming and that had a non-culturable phenotype were formed. The cell-wall-deficient forms displayed reduced expression of genes encoding synthases of cell wall components.