Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 110, Issue 10, Pages 4140-4145Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1213060110
Keywords
systems biology; single-cell dynamics; computational biology
Categories
Funding
- NIH [R01GM079771, R01GM086793]
- US National Science Foundation CAREER Award [0644463]
- Packard Foundation
- International Human Frontier Science Program Organization
- European Molecular Biology Organization
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Div Of Molecular and Cellular Bioscience [0644463] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Cells use general stress response pathways to activate diverse target genes in response to a variety of stresses. However, general stress responses coexist with more specific pathways that are activated by individual stresses, provoking the fundamental question of whether and how cells control the generality or specificity of their response to a particular stress. Here we address this issue using quantitative time-lapse microscopy of the Bacillus subtilis environmental stress response, mediated by sigma(B). We analyzed sigma(B) activation in response to stresses such as salt and ethanol imposed at varying rates of increase. Dynamically, sigma(B) responded to these stresses with a single adaptive activity pulse, whose amplitude depended on the rate at which the stress increased. This rate-responsive behavior can be understood from mathematical modeling of a key negative feedback loop in the underlying regulatory circuit. Using RNAseq we analyzed the effects of both rapid and gradual increases of ethanol and salt stress across the genome. Because of the rate responsiveness of sigma(B) activation, salt and ethanol regulons overlap under rapid, but not gradual, increases in stress. Thus, the cell responds specifically to individual stresses that appear gradually, while using sigma(B) to broaden the cellular response under more rapidly deteriorating conditions. Such dynamic control of specificity could be a critical function of other general stress response pathways.
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