Small Things Considered

摘要

High on the list of exciting research findings concerns the expression of the protein caveolin-1 in Escherichia coli. Surprisingly, this procedure resulted in these bacterial cells filling up with vesicles to the point where there was almost no room for anything else. When I give talks based on material from this blog, this story stands out (maybe in part because my voice tends to quiver when I relate it). Who would have thought that a single foreign protein could have such a novel and striking effect? That a bacterial cell can be induced not just to assemble foreign intracellular vesicles but also to make them in prodigious amounts does indeed challenge the imagination. Is E. coli happy carrying such a load of foreign vesicles? Obviously, that situation cannot go on forever. Not surprisingly, the expression of caveolin-1 results in a slower linear increase in cell mass that eventually stops after about 16 hours. The cells apparently remain metabolically active for some time longer.