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Chaperonins govern growth of Escherichia coli at low temperatures

Nature Biotechnology volume 21, pages 1266–1267 (2003)Cite this article

To the editor:

Growth and multiplication of specific cells and organisms occurs within narrow physico-chemical conditions. Despite the fundamental importance of one (or at most two) cellular functions that determine the growth range of a cell or an organism, in most cases we have little idea of their identity. Here, we report the finding that chaperonins determine growth at lower temperatures of the bacterium Escherichia coli K-12. The finding has implications for the use of bacteria in environmental biotechnology, biochemical engineering and recombinant protein production.

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Figure 1: In vivo and in vitro properties of the chaperonins of Oleispira antarctica.

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Acknowledgements

M.F. thanks the European Commission for a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship, and K.T. thanks the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie for generous support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Microbiology, German Research Centre for Biotechnology (GBF), Braunschweig, 38124, Germany

    Manuel Ferrer, Tatyana N Chernikova, Peter N Golyshin & Kenneth N Timmis

  2. Istituto Sperimentale Talassografico, CNR, Messina, Italy

    Michail M Yakimov

Authors
  1. Manuel Ferrer
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  2. Tatyana N Chernikova
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  3. Michail M Yakimov
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  4. Peter N Golyshin
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  5. Kenneth N Timmis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manuel Ferrer.

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Ferrer, M., Chernikova, T., Yakimov, M. et al. Chaperonins govern growth of Escherichia coli at low temperatures. Nat Biotechnol 21, 1266–1267 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1103-1266

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