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Updated: Jun 20, 2026

A Tandem Liquid Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry-based Approach for Metabolite Analysis of Staphylococcus aureus
Published on: March 28, 2017
Decoupling of global metabolic flux and proteome partitioning in bacteria
Ryan Thiermann1, Jin Yang2,3, Aniket Zodage1
1Department of Physics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Abstract:
Bacteria regulate homeostatic growth by adjusting proteome composition. In Escherichia coli, this coordination is mediated by guanosine tetraphosphate and pentaphosphate, collectively termed (p)ppGpp, which couple amino acid supply with ribsosome production. We identified a distinct architecture in Bacillus subtilis, in which guanosine triphosphate (GTP), not (p)ppGpp, controls proteome allocation. Translational inhibition resulted in GTP depletion and suppressed amino acid biosynthesis through feedback inhibition without altering ribosome abundance, establishing a regulated decoupling between total amino acid flux and proteome composition, with flux deviating from proteome-based predictions. By artificially adjusting GTP concentrations, we recoupled flux and proteome, restoring growth to maximal amounts. The regulated suboptimality enables a trade-off to balance growth and stress resilience. Similar GTP-based strategies were present in other Firmicute species, indicating possible evolutionary conservation. Proteome composition and metabolic flux have distinct regulatory layers in some bacteria.
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