Figure 3.
Cation Accumulation on Forespore Surfaces Suppresses Premature Germination
(A) Phase-contrast images of wild-type (WT) and ΔgerA strains during sporulation. Scale bar, 2 μm. Premature germination is indicated by white arrows, whereas it is absent with ΔgerA.
(B) Estimated probability of premature germination in wt and ΔgerA strains (at least 351 sporulating cells were analyzed for each strain from two independent experiments). Error bars are 95% confidence intervals for Poisson distribution.
(C) The probability of premature germination and ThT fluorescence (mean ± SEM) over time. Time series of single-cell ThT intensity are aligned as in Figure 1E, and probability of premature germination was calculated for each hour.
(D) A diagram showing the hypothesis that premature germination probability is coupled with the cation accumulation on forespore surfaces. A phenomenological mathematical model was developed accounting the influx and efflux of cations (k2 and k-2) and the binding and unbinding of cations to forespore surfaces (k1 and k-1).
(E) Heatmap showing the simulation results of Cf (cations on forespore surface) computed with various k1max and k-2.