Figure 7. Encapsulin nanocompartments are upregulated during starvation and protect the cells from oxidative stress.

A Western blot of EncA from lysate of 1 × 10⁸ vegetative cells in rich CTT medium or starvation TPM medium, and spores after 48 or 96 h of development.

B Amounts of purified nanocompartments recovered from different cell types, compared to yield recovered from cells grown in CTT (100%).

C EM of unstained longitudinal thin sections of vegetative cells grown in CTT (left panel) or TPM medium (right panel). Arrows mark dense-cored encapsulin nanocompartments. Insets, transverse thin cross-sections. Scale bar, 0.5 μm.

D, E Survival of wild-type (blue curve) and encA::pCR2.1 disruption (yellow curve) strains (D) and of wild-type (blue curve) and ΔencA in-frame deletion (orange curve) (E) after exposure to 0.5 mM hydrogen peroxide.

Source data are available online for this figure.