在这项工作中，课题组发现抗生素治疗可以诱导细菌物种内部和物种之间的囊泡介导的水平蛋白质转移。研究小组在大肠杆菌中开发了一个遗传系统来跟踪转移事件，并对细菌的等基因群体进行了单细胞转录组分析。抗生素刺激这些等基因群体分化为不同的细胞状态：供体细胞激活膜应激反应以释放含有蛋白质的囊泡，而受体细胞抑制这种反应以从邻近细胞获取蛋白质。蛋白质摄取增强了受体细胞的抗生素持久性，揭示了在抗生素治疗期间，囊泡交换促进了细菌的存活。
据悉，细菌细胞间的生物物质交换驱动着适应和进化。然而，细菌是否可以交换功能蛋白仍不清楚。
附：英文原文
Title: Antibiotics stimulate protein transfer to persister cells
Author: Alice X. Wen, Julia Bos, Debojyoti Panda, Katelin M. Hagstrom, Shubham Singh, Shrawan Kumar Mageswaran, Xiaoli Wang, Bo Hu, Kobie T. Welch, Matthew B. Cooke, Jennifer A. Halliday, Laura Deus Ramirez, Antoinette E. Martinez, Yi-Wei Chang, David A. Weitz, Christophe Herman
Issue&Volume: 2026-06-25
Abstract: The exchange of biological matter between bacterial cells drives adaptation and evolution. However, whether bacteria can exchange functional proteins remains unclear. In this work, we found that antibiotic treatment can induce vesicle-mediated horizontal protein transfer within and between bacterial species. We developed a genetic system in Escherichia coli to track transfer events and performed single-cell transcriptomic profiling on an isogenic population of bacteria. Antibiotics stimulated the differentiation of this isogenic population into distinct cell states: donor cells that activated a membrane stress response to release protein-containing vesicles and recipient cells that suppressed this response to acquire protein from their neighbors. Protein uptake enhanced the antibiotic persistence of recipient cells, revealing that vesicle exchange promotes bacterial survival during antibiotic treatment.
DOI: adx3972
Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx3972