Stressed Bacteria Stop Growing

I read an article called "Stressed Bacteria Stop Growing" which was published by the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This article tells us that it has been discovered that stress is very bad for organisms. Experiments tested in the University of Massachusetts Amherst and MIT, have discovered results that if the mechanism of an organism is releasing stress or is exposed to very hot or cold temperatures, cells within the organism will stop growing.

Stressful conditions cause proteins in the cell to change shape or be misfolded and stop working.

“Bacteria deal with stress by destroying proteins. Specifically, we've shown that certain kinds of bacteria respond to high temperatures by destroying proteins needed for DNA replication. Therefore, they stop growing. The signal for this destruction turned out to be the buildup of proteins that were misfolded because of the stress."

Cells grow in stable and favorable conditions which means that your DNA is replication but in stressful conditions, cells prevent the start of replication and instead change their priorities to protection.

Cells, including bacteria, contain various proteins. Molecules that help cells create chemical reactions are needed. The shape of the proteins determine what job they do within an organism. So therefore, if proteins bend out of their shape in stressful conditions, they will no longer be able to do their job and will stop working and growing.

There have been decades of study for this and scientists didn’t understand the molecules that cells use to send information about surrounding conditions affected the reproduction machinery.

“Jing Liv, a graduate student researcher in the UMass Amherst

shows that in the bacteria Caulobacter, can help defend against the effects of stress by cutting up and destroying small amounts of misfolded proteins.”

However, when the enxyme finds too many proteins that are bent out of shape, it will eliminate other protein that wasn’t damaged, then deleting all functioning proteins to complete the DNA replication process.

As the replication process begins to stop, the cells obviously stop growing. When the stress is over, the number of affected proteins drops and then cells start growing again.

Chien says, "In this way, bacteria can respond quickly to stressful, but restart again quickly. Stress and protein misfolding are a universal part of life, so understanding how simple bacteria deal with this kind of stress will help us understand how our cells do as well."

In conclusion, cells put under stressful conditions and environments will bend the proteins inside them into unnatural shapes and those proteins will not be able to perform their vital functions and therefore will stop every chance of the cell ever growing.

Source: University of Massachusetts Amherst. "Stressed bacteria stop growing: Mechanism discovered."ScienceDaily, 15 Aug. 2013. Web. 18 Aug. 2013. <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130815172202.htm