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 ...

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 ...

When the going gets tough for certain bacteria, they form into spores that can withstand the harshest of environments. Scientists have now utilized that fact to produce "living plastic" that ...

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 ...