Shortage of nutrients in bacteria: the stringent response

Abstract

In nature, bacteria adopt different strategies to survive for long period under hostile conditions. When nutrients are limiting, it appears now that there may be a common pathway which controls the maintenance of a dormant stage in bacteria till fresh nutrients are available again. Stringent response is one of the many responses that bacterua exhibit faced with nutrient starvation, characterized by the production of nucleotide polyphosphate and arrest in stable RNA synthesis. The commonality of mechanism in stingent response in bacteria and the importance of dormant stage biology of pathogenic microorganism have generated a lot of interest in recent time and form the base of this review.