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DNA as a Nutrient: Novel Role for Bacterial Competence Gene Homologs
Open accessAbstract
The uptake and stable maintenance of extracellular DNA, genetic transformation, is universally recognized as a major force in microbial evolution. We show here that extracellular DNA, both homospecific and heterospecific, can also serve as the sole source of carbon and energy supporting microbial growth. Mutants unable to consume DNA suffer a significant loss of fitness during stationary-phase competition. In Escherichia coli , the use of DNA as a nutrient depends on homologs of proteins involved in natural genetic competence and transformation in Haemophilus influenzae and Neisseria gonorrhoeae . Homologs of these E. coli genes are present in many members of the γ subclass of Proteobacteria , suggesting that the mechanisms for consumption of DNA may have been widely conserved during evolution.
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Cited by
Communication among Oral Bacteria
Kolenbrander, P. E., Andersen, R. N., Blehert, D. S., Egland, P. G., Foster, J. S., & Palmer, R. J. (2002) · Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews · doi:10.1128/mmbr.66.3.486-505.2002 · Cited by 1,022
Bacterial transformation: distribution, shared mechanisms and divergent control
Johnston, C., Martin, B., Fichant, G., Polard, P., & Claverys, J.-P. (2014) · Nature Reviews Microbiology · doi:10.1038/nrmicro3199 · Cited by 731
Huddleston, J. R. (2014) · Infection and Drug Resistance · doi:10.2147/idr.s48820 · Cited by 522
Long-term survival during stationary phase: evolution and the GASP phenotype
Finkel, S. E. (2006) · Nature Reviews Microbiology · doi:10.1038/nrmicro1340 · Cited by 508
Self-citationEffect of DNase and Antibiotics on Biofilm Characteristics
Tetz, G. V., Artemenko, N. K., & Tetz, V. V. (2009) · Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy · doi:10.1128/aac.00471-08 · Cited by 396
Metadata
- Authors
- Finkel, S. E., & Kolter, R.
- Venue
- Journal of Bacteriology
- Publisher
- American Society for Microbiology
- Published
- 2001-11
- Volume
- 183
- Issue
- 21
- Pages
- 6288-6293
- ISSN
- 0021-9193 (ISSN-L)
- 1098-5530
- OpenAlex
- W2106484287
- Cited by
- 354
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 4.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- Finkel, S. E., & Kolter, R. (2001). DNA as a Nutrient: Novel Role for Bacterial Competence Gene Homologs. Journal of Bacteriology. https://doi.org/10.1128/jb.183.21.6288-6293.2001
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
