Fig 3.

Sporulation assay. Combination of all relevant data of a sporulation assay for the B. subtilis wild-type strain (green lines and open circles), the rsbVW-sigB mutant strain BAR 17 (gray lines and open triangles), strain BAR 18 carrying the xylose-inducible sigB construct in amyE (red dotted lines and crosses), and strain BAR 19 carrying the sigB promoter deletion ΔP_B of spo0E (blue dashed and dotted lines and crosses). The symbol legend is shown in panel A1. The left column shows the control experiments (A1, growth; B1, CFU; C1, spore-forming units [SFU]) for all strains grown in DSM without the addition of xylose. The right column (A2, B2, and C2) shows the corresponding data for all strains grown in DSM with the addition of 0.1% xylose when cultures reached an OD₅₄₀ of 2.0. A control sample was taken for all experiments at an OD₅₄₀ of 0.4, and t0 was set when cultures reached an OD₅₄₀ of 2.0. After this, growth was monitored hourly, and samples for CFU and SFU determination were taken every 3 h for 24 h, and a final sample was taken after 48 h. All experiments were performed in triplicate, and error bars are depicted.