Can bacteria "store" gene products? - (Sep/11/2005 )

Hi,

I am looking at an experimentally controllable promoter to mediate gene expression and was wondering if bacteria are be able to "store" the gene product for a certain time as a kind of "back-up". I would actually assume that piled up protein is degraded quickly.

Could anyone recommend a good paper about this topic? Any advise is highly appreciated as well.

Thanks a lot.
Susan

Different proteins have different half lives. Many will have half lives longer than the division rate (20 minutes) of the bacteria so dilution of the protein through cell replication can be a significant factor in the loss of activity. Sorry I'm not familiar with any specific papers looking at average protein half lives.

Sometimes bacteria can store gene products (especially if you have high expression of a toxic protein) in granules.