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. 2007 Dec;3(12):e224.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.0030224.

A bacterial kind of aging

Thomas Nyström  1
Affiliations

A bacterial kind of aging

Thomas Nyström. PLoS Genet. 2007 Dec.
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests. The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Schematic Representation of Possible Aging Factors in a System Dividing by Binary Fission
During cytokinesis, one daughter cell will inherit a pole that is older than the one inherited by its sibling. Intriguingly, the “old pole” cells of E. coli display a progressive increase in their generation time [5]. There are several potential reasons for this decline in physiological fitness: (1) Inheritance of older cell-surface material may reduce the ability of the cell to insulate itself against the environment. (2) Segregation of differently damaged, and potentially cytotoxic, DNA strands [15] could provide one daughter with a noncorrupt message akin to the “immortal DNA strand” cosegregation mechanism originally proposed by Cairns for preserving the integrity of stem cell genomes [27]. (3) Segregation of cytotoxic molecules, such as extragenomic episomes or oxidatively damaged and aggregated proteins, may result in sibling-specific deterioration. (4) Segregation of damage could cause a reduction in fitness even in the absence of cytotoxicity, since the sibling inheriting more damage may, as a consequence, upregulate maintenance (M) (damage defense) systems. In view of the fact that the transcriptional power of cells like E. coli is limiting, such an elevation of maintenance activities could be traded for a reduction of growth-related activities (G) [28,29].
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