Stochastic antagonism between two proteins governs a bacterial cell fate switch

Abstract

Protein competition drives cell fate Cell survival can require switching mechanisms that are flexible enough to accommodate environmental changes but also stable for the required duration. Lord et al. created a switching system in bacteria based on stochastic competition between two proteins: one is a transcriptional repressor, and the other is an antagonist that binds the repressor and locks it in an inactive state. They show that this system controls switching of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis from a motile, unicellular state to an immobile, multicellular state, and that the control system is transferable to another distantly related bacterium. Similar mechanisms could be more widely operable in biological systems than previously recognized. Science , this issue p. 116