New insights into copper physiology in Bacillus subtilis. The outlines of the pathway for copper import and trafficking to support aerobic growth are emerging. Work led by Grayson Barnes, with support from our collaborators.
doi.org/10.1128/mbio...
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Tasneem Bareia on teaching Bacillus subtilis to fix carbon dioxide
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Luisa Carrégalo Ríos (from @diegromero.bsky.social) on Early seed priming with closely related Bacillus strains induces divergent physiological and defense responses in melon
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Copper is a critical micronutrient for bacteria; however, it is toxic in excess. This leads to the cell having tightly regulated import and export systems to prevent intoxication while having sufficient copper for cellular needs. Copper export has been well studied, but copper import and the effects of copper starvation are less defined. In this article, we characterize the Bacillus subtilis high-affinity copper importer YcnJ. We show that under copper limitation, the cell is deficient in copper-containing oxidases, which leads to respiratory defects. Copper imported by YcnJ is proposed to function in a pathway with other proteins implicated in the assembly of respiratory oxidases. More generally, this work contributes to the underexplored area of copper import and trafficking in bacteria.
doi.org
Wilfried Meijer on Fine-Tuning to the Extreme: Evolution of Multilayer Control of Gene Expression
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Last talk at #BACELL2026 is by Giulia Barbieri (University of Pavia) on the role of CodY and the stringent response in aprE transcription