Dealing with environmental stress through bacterial cell cycle contortions

Bacteria adapt raidly to changing conditions that they encounter in their environments. Changes in in gene expression according to the environment are well documented. For exemple stress reponses allowing bacteria to cope with genotoxic, acid or oxidative stresses are well charcaterized. However the consequences that such stresses have on the cell cycle of multiplying bacteria are less characterized. We focus our work on understanding cell cycle response of a pathogenic E. coli bacteria that invades macrophages were it encounters many different stresses. We unraveled that medium acidification and genotoxic stresses are promoting dramatic chromosome  replication and cell division alterations that can ultimatly produce dormant cells that fully tolerate environmental stresses.