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Review
. 2019 Dec 11:9:421.
doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2019.00421. eCollection 2019.

Switching Lifestyles Is an in vivo Adaptive Strategy of Bacterial Pathogens

Stuti K Desai  1 , Linda J Kenney  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Switching Lifestyles Is an in vivo Adaptive Strategy of Bacterial Pathogens

Stuti K Desai et al. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. .

Abstract

Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens exist as planktonic cells only at limited times during their life cycle. In response to environmental signals such as temperature, pH, osmolality, and nutrient availability, pathogenic bacteria can adopt varied cellular fates, which involves the activation of virulence gene programs and/or the induction of a sessile lifestyle to form multicellular surface-attached communities. In Salmonella, SsrB is the response regulator which governs the lifestyle switch from an intracellular virulent state to form dormant biofilms in chronically infected hosts. Using the Salmonella lifestyle switch as a paradigm, we herein compare how other pathogens alter their lifestyles to enable survival, colonization and persistence in response to different environmental cues. It is evident that lifestyle switching often involves transcriptional regulators and their modification as highlighted here. Phenotypic heterogeneity resulting from stochastic cellular processes can also drive lifestyle variation among members of a population, although this subject is not considered in the present review.

Keywords: CsgD; Spo0A; SsrB; acid stress; biofilms; chronic infections; lifestyles; virulence.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Environmental regulation of bacterial lifestyles. (A) A general scheme depicting lifestyle switches in pathogenic bacteria to favor virulence or biofilm formation. (B) In Salmonella, SsrB~P regulates the intracellular lifestyle and SsrB favors the formation of the carrier state and (C) Salmonella forms SsrB-dependent multicellular aggregates during persistent infections in C. elegans.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Transcriptional regulators drive lifestyle changes in Gram-positive pathogens. (A) In C. difficile, the intracellular levels of Spo0A~P regulate the lifestyle switch to form spores or biofilms and (B) two different forms of the transcriptional regulator PrfA in L. monocytogenes, are required to activate the intracellular lifestyle or to form in vivo aggregates.
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