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Journal of Bacteriology, April 2004, p. 2212-2214, Vol. 186, No. 7
0021-9193/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JB.186.7.2212-2214.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Stochastic Processes Influence Stationary-Phase Decisions in Bacillus subtilis

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,¹ Department of Veterinary Science and Microbiology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721²

Received 22 September 2003/ Accepted 18 December 2003

It has recently been proposed that phenotypic variation in clonal populations of bacterial species results from intracellular "noise," i.e., random fluctuations in levels of cellular molecules, which would be predicted to be insensitive to selective pressure. To test this notion, we propagated five populations of Bacillus subtilis for 5,000 generations with selection for one phenotype: the decision to sporulate. In support of the noise hypothesis, we report that none of the populations responded to selection by improving their efficiency of sporulation, indicating that intracellular noise is independent of heritable genotype.

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