Metabolism as a signal generator in bacteria

Bacteria constantly monitor their environment to adapt inner makeup. Beyond providing chemical sustenance, metabolism provides most of the feedback on cellular via metabolite binding regulatory proteins or mRNA. Although first metabolite-protein interactions were discovered more than 60 years ago, identification new is still technically challenging and time-consuming. Here, we compiled quantified current knowledge review recent advances in understanding how metabolites act as signals transcription factors, two-component systems, protein kinases, riboswitches. New systematic methods omics integration will accelerate pace discovery, a remaining challenge functionality coordination local global metabolic across different layers.