Bacteria Leverage Protein Degradation to Increase Energy Supply during Starvation.

Bacteria respond to nutrient starvation by synthesizing stress-response proteins which are critical for long-term survival. In a preceding abstract, we described a global protein degradation system that fuels proteins synthesis at the expense of other cytoplasmic proteins in E. coli during glucose starvation. Here we report the development of a mutant E. coli strain for which energy can be supplemented without cell growth during glucose starvation. In this mutant, the aforementioned protein degradation system is shown to be largely unnecessary for survival, suggesting that a major physiological function of proteome remodeling is to increase the supply of energy in glucose-starved cells. We will further discuss the role of proteome remodeling and energy homeostasis for survival in other forms of nutrient starvation.