SIGNAL-TRANSDUCTION IN BACTERIA - MOLECULAR MECHANISMS OF STIMULUS-RESPONSE COUPLING

In bacteria, adaptive responses to changing environmental conditions a re mediated by signal transduction systems that involve modular protei n domains. Despite great diversity in the integration of domains into different systems, studies of individual components have revealed mole cular strategies that are widely applicable. Studies of receptors have advanced our understanding of how information is transmitted across m embranes, the determination of three-dimensional structures of domains of histidine protein kinase domains and response regulator proteins h as begun to reveal the molecular basis of signaling via two-component phosphoryltransfer pathways, and the description of 'eukaryotic-like' protein domains involved in bacterial signaling has emphasized the uni versality of intracellular signaling mechanisms.