Min oscillations in bacteria as real-time reporter of environmental challenges at the single-cell level

Min oscillations are a fascinating mechanism used by Escherichia coli to find their middle. Beyond their biological role, they provide a convenient and relatively unexplored method to monitor the effect of sublethal environmental challenges on bacterial physiology in real-time and at the single-cell level. In this review, we discuss the original papers that put forward the idea of using Min oscillations as a reporting tool to monitor the effect of extracellular cationic compounds, including antibiotics. More recent work from our laboratory explores this tool to follow bacterial response to other challenges such as weak mechanical interactions with nanomaterials or photodynamic treatment. We discuss the physiological meaning of the changes in Min oscillation period, likely related to membrane potential dynamics, as well as the benefits and limitations of using oscillations as a reporter in fluorescence microscopy. Overall, Min oscillations are a useful addition to the fluorescence microscopy toolbox in order to visualize stress responses in E. coli, and have the potential to provide full mechanistic understanding of the events that lead to bacterial cell death in different contexts.