RelE-mediated dormancy is enhanced at high cell density in Escherichia coli.

Bacteria show remarkable adaptability under several stressful conditions by shifting themselves into a dormant state. Less is known, however, about the mechanism underlying the cell transition to dormancy. Here, we report that the transition to dormant states is mediated by one of the major toxin-antitoxin systems, RelEB, in a cell density-dependent manner in Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655. We constructed a strain, IKA121, which expresses the toxin RelE in the presence of rhamnose and lacks chromosomal relBE and rhaBAD. With this strain, we demonstrated that RelE-mediated dormancy is enhanced at high cell densities compared to that at low cell densities. The initiation of expression of the antitoxin RelB from a plasmid, pCA24N, reversed RelE-mediated dormancy in bacterial cultures. The activation of RelE increased the appearance of persister cells against β-lactams, quinolones, and aminoglycosides, and more persister cells appeared at high cell densities than at low cell densities. Further analysis indicated that amino acid starvation and an uncharacterized extracellular heat-labile substance promote RelE-mediated dormancy. This is a first report on the induction of RelE-mediated dormancy by high cell density. This work establishes a population-based dormancy mechanism to help explain E. coli survival in stressful environments.