When Escherichia coli cells exhaust a nutrient, they cease dividing and enter a non-growing state. When nutrients are restored, the cells can resume growth quickly. Even after several weeks of starvation, many cells in a culture retain this ability to resume growth whn conditions become more favorable. Molecular analysis of the events that occur upon entry into the stationary phase, during prolonged starvation, and during the resumption of growth, have revealed some of the regulatory mechanisms that starved cell utilize in order to survive. This work continues to expand our understanding of stationary phase physiology. We will analyze the regulation of transcription form two stationary phase-ducible promoters. To study the starvation signal transduction pathway, we will isolate conditional mutations that cause E. coli cells to express starvation-specific genes during exponential growth. We will also investigate the role of a novel starvation-specific histone-like protein, VTM, in maintaining the endogenous metabolic activity of starved cells for resumption of exponential growth starvation. %%% This work addresses a fundamental question in the physiology of bacteria: how do bacteria respond to and survive periods of prolonged starvation.
