Mechanistic Insights Into E. Coli Recovery From Growth Arrest

Authors

• Ahmed H. Hassan
• Yuko Nakano, Thomas Jefferson UniversityFollow
• Howard Gamper, Thomas Jefferson UniversityFollow
• Isao Masuda, Thomas Jefferson UniversityFollow
• Ludmila Vesela
• Matyas Pinkas
• Sathya Narayanan Nagarajan
• Jonathan Dworkin
• Gregor Blaha
• Ya-Ming Hou, Thomas Jefferson UniversityFollow
• Gabriel Demo

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-11-2026

Comments

This article is the author’s final published version in BMJ Open, Volume 14, 2024, Article number e077471.

The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-077471. Copyright © 2024 Author(s) (or their employer(s)).

Abstract

Bacteria survive hostile conditions by shutting down protein synthesis, but how they restart growth remains poorly understood. Here, we use an E. coli ΔrimM strain, which exhibits a prolonged growth arrest, as a model to investigate how bacteria recover from this state and restore protein synthesis. RimM is a conserved ribosome maturation factor for the 3'-major (head) domain of the 16S rRNA within the bacterial 30S subunit. The loss of RimM causes a longer delay in recovery than other 30S maturation factors, including RbfA. Cryo-EM analysis of ΔrimM ribosomes suggests a delayed recruitment of ribosomal proteins to the 30S head domain and increased occupancy of the initiation factors IF1 and IF3, as well as recruitment of the silencing factor RsfS to the 50S subunit. These coordinated changes provide a safeguarding mechanism to block the assembly of premature 70S ribosomes. Notably, while the delayed 30S assembly in ΔrimM reduces the activity of global protein synthesis during the recovery phase, bacteria attempt to compensate for this deficiency by producing higher levels of the ribosomal machinery, indicating a programmatic change in energy allocation. These findings highlight the importance of the RimM-assisted assembly of the ribosomal head domain for bacterial recovery from growth arrest.

Recommended Citation

Hassan, Ahmed H.; Nakano, Yuko; Gamper, Howard; Masuda, Isao; Vesela, Ludmila; Pinkas, Matyas; Nagarajan, Sathya Narayanan; Dworkin, Jonathan; Blaha, Gregor; Hou, Ya-Ming; and Demo, Gabriel, "Mechanistic Insights Into E. Coli Recovery From Growth Arrest" (2026). Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Faculty Papers. Paper 302.
https://jdc.jefferson.edu/bmpfp/302

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

PubMed ID

41965359

Language

English