Bacterial spores store information about the individual growth history of their progenitor cells, thus retaining a "memory" that links the different stages of the bacterial life cycle. The spore ...

But identical individuals with mutations in the spoIIR gene, which codes for a secreted protein involved in the mother-spore cell differentiation, can adopt any of four different fates, depending on ...

HOUSTON, April 15, 2008 -- An investigation of the genes that govern spore formation in the bacteria B. subtilis shows that chance plays a significant role in determining which of the microbes ...

A team analyzed the amino acids that affect the formation of spores in a bacterium that causes food poisoning, Clostridium perfringens, and identified serine as an amino acid that inhibits spore ...

Sometimes procrastination pays off. When their environment gets too stressful, many bacteria stuff some of their innards into ultratough packets called spores, which shut down and wait—potentially for ...

Endosymbiotic relationships—in which one organism lives within another—are striking examples of mutualism, and can often significantly shape the biology of the participant species. In new findings ...