Generally Stressed Out Bacteria: Environmental Stress Response Mechanisms in Gram-Positive Bacteria

The ability to monitor the environment for toxic chemical and physical disturbances is essential for bacteria that live in dynamic environments. The fundamental sensing mechanisms and physiological responses that allow bacteria to thrive are conserved even if the molecular components of these pathways are not. The bacterial general stress response (GSR) represents a conceptual model for how one pathway integrates a wide range of environmental signals, and how a generalized system with broad molecular responses is coordinated to promote survival likely through complementary pathways. Environmental stress signals such as heat, osmotic stress, and pH changes are received by sensor proteins that through a signaling cascade activate the sigma factor, SigB, to regulate over 200 genes. Additionally, the GSR plays an important role in stress priming that increases bacterial fitness to unrelated subsequent stressors such as oxidative compounds. While the GSR response is implicated during oxidative stress, the reason for its activation remains unknown and suggests crosstalk between environmental and oxidative stress sensors and responses to coordinate antioxidant functions. Systems levels studies of cellular responses such as transcriptomes, proteomes, and metabolomes of stressed bacteria and single-cell analysis could shed light into the regulated functions that protect, remediate, and minimize damage during dynamic environments. This perspective will focus on fundamental stress sensing mechanisms and responses in Gram-positive bacterial species to illustrate their commonalities at the molecular and physiological levels; summarize exciting directions; and highlight how system-level approaches can help us understand bacterial physiology.