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MICROBIOLOGY: Cannibals Defy Starvation and Avoid Sporulation
Hanna Engelberg-Kulka and Ronen Hazan
When faced with declining nutrients, many bacteria enter sporulation so that their spores can be distributed to other areas that may be nutrient-rich. In their Perspective, Engelberg-Kulka and Hazan discuss a fascinating new study (González-Pastor et al.) revealing that in Bacillus subtilis a subpopulation of bacterial cells avoid sporulation by inducing some of their comrades to die and then feeding on the released nutrients.
The authors are in the Department of Molecular Biology, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem 91120, Israel. E-mail: hanita{at}cc.huji.ac.il
The editors suggest the following Related Resources on Science sites:
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