Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2014 Oct 2;10(10):e1004356.
doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1004356. eCollection 2014 Oct.

Adaptive prediction as a strategy in microbial infections

Sascha Brunke  1 , Bernhard Hube  2
Affiliations
Review

Adaptive prediction as a strategy in microbial infections

Sascha Brunke et al. PLoS Pathog. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. The basis of adaptive prediction.
(A) The conditions in environment 1 (red circles) activate a distinct response (green circles) in a microbe. After changing to environment 2, altering, e.g., the expression pattern to respond to the new conditions (triangles) requires time, during which the microbe is not well adapted. (B) If the sequential temporal order of the two environments from (A) is kept over many generations, a new signal pathway can form. Now, the conditions in environment 1 induce responses to both the first and the second environment. When changing to environment 2, the microbe is hence already pre-adapted.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Candida albicans as an example for adaptive prediction of pathogens in the host.
When attaching to epithelial cells, environmental signals trigger hyphae formation. The hyphae start to express a set of proteins which are not apparently beneficial for the fungus in its current situation (green symbols). Only when penetrating into the host tissue and during encounters with host immune cells like neutrophils, the stresses (red symbols) occur under which these proteins give C. albicans an advantage in survival and growth (see text for more details).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Perkins TJ, Swain PS (2009) Strategies for cellular decision-making. Mol Syst Biol 5: 326. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mitchell A, Romano GH, Groisman B, Yona A, Dekel E, et al. (2009) Adaptive prediction of environmental changes by microorganisms. Nature 460: 220–224. - PubMed
    1. Tagkopoulos I, Liu YC, Tavazoie S (2008) Predictive behavior within microbial genetic networks. Science 320: 1313–1317. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hamner S, McInnerney K, Williamson K, Franklin MJ, Ford TE (2013) Bile salts affect expression of Escherichia coli O157:H7 genes for virulence and iron acquisition, and promote growth under iron limiting conditions. PLoS ONE 8: e74647. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gunn JS (2000) Mechanisms of bacterial resistance and response to bile. Microbes Infect 2: 907–913. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources