Toxin-Antitoxin Systems Alter Adaptation of Mycobacterium smegmatis to Environmental Stress

Abstract

Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are mechanisms for rapid adaptation of bacteria to environmental changes. Mycobacterium smegmatis , a model bacterium for studying Mycobacterium tuberculosis , encodes eight putative TA systems. Here, we constructed an M. smegmatis mutant with deletions of all eight TA-encoding genes and evaluated the resistance of these mutants to environmental stresses.