Sporulation in mycobacteria Ghosh, J. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 10781–10786 (2009)
Latency poses a hidden threat from pathogenic mycobacterial species, as they can persist in the host without causing any symptoms. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying latency remain poorly understood. Ghosh et al. isolated a subpopulation of small spore-like particles from 2-month-old cultures of Mycobacterium marinum, the causative agent of a tuberculosis-like disease in fish and frogs. The addition of fresh media caused the spores to germinate into vegetative cells, but when the stationary growth phase was reached, spores reappeared through endospore formation. Electron microscopy confirmed that the particles contained structures that are commonly found in spores from other bacterial species. Furthermore, a search of the M. marinum genome identified homologues of genes that are known to have a role in spore formation in other species. Spore particles were also seen in late stationary phase cultures of a Mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette–Guérin strain. This suggests that sporulation may have been widely adopted as a survival mechanism by mycobacterial species.
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