MW (Heidy) den Besten: Primed to survive; prediction of stress-induced resistance

Bacteria are constantly faced with changing environmental conditions and have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to adapt to changing environments. This stress adaptive behavior is a crucial survival strategy for microorganisms, including the food-borne pathogen Bacillus cereus. Its ability to adapt to mild stressing environments and gain resistance, allows this bacterium to survive mild processing treatments and grow in foods and upon consumption in the human gastro-intestinal tract. The resistance enhancement of B. cereus due to mild stress adaptation is affected by a number of factors including the growth phase of the cell, strain diversity, population heterogeneity, and the culturing temperature during mild stress treatment. This stress adaptive behavior is further analyzed in detail using quantitative techniques, single cell analyses and molecular techniques. This resulted in the identification of molecular biomarkers that predicted the resistance level of mild stress-adapted cells. These biomarkers are widely conserved in microorganisms, underlining their predictive potential also in other microorganisms. Identification of these biomarkers with high predictive quality opens up avenues to detect stress adaptive behavior at an early stage and to control stress-induced resistance in the food chain.