Let's stop overlooking bacterial aging

Abstract

It has long been believed that bacteria, the organisms displaying symmetrical pattern of divisions, cannot age, and thereby constitute essentially immortal creatures. In recent years, the discovery of morphologically (Caulobacter crescentus) and functionally (Escherichia coli) asymmetrical cell fission as well as an observation of cell behavior in the stationary growth phase (Escherichia coli) overthrew, at least partly, the myth of bacterial immortality. In fact, the body of evidence has accumulated that bacteria may also get old similarly as eukaryotic cells and organisms do. In this paper a brief overview of the state-of-art in the field of bacterial aging is discussed, and the major challenges and limitations in these research are delineated.