The Effects of Temperature on Cellular Physiology

Abstract

Temperature impacts biological systems across all length and timescales. Cells and the enzymes that comprise them respond to temperature fluctuations on short timescales, and temperature can affect protein folding, the molecular composition of cells, and volume expansion. Entire ecosystems exhibit temperature-dependent behaviors, and global warming threatens to disrupt thermal homeostasis in microbes that are important for human and planetary health. Intriguingly, the growth rate of most species follows the Arrhenius law of equilibrium thermodynamics, with an activation energy similar to that of individual enzymes but with maximal growth rates and over temperature ranges that are species specific. In this review, we discuss how the temperature dependence of critical cellular processes, such as the central dogma and membrane fluidity, contributes to the temperature dependence of growth. We conclude with a discussion of adaptation to temperature shifts and the effects of temperature on evolution and on the properties of microbial ecosystems.

Warmer temperatures favor slower-growing bacteria in natural marine communities

“…The distribution of fast-and slow-growing taxa is a powerful trait-based description of the structure of a bacterial community (14,15), just as it is for multicellular organisms ranging from plants (16) to corals (17,18). Maximum growth rates are a key component of the diverse life history strategies exhibited by micro-and macro-organisms (19)(20)(21)(22)(23) and determine the ability of a species to survive and compete in a given environment (24). In aquatic bacteria, maximum growth rate differentiates fast-growing copiotrophs, found in nutrient-rich waters, from slow-growing but efficient oligotrophs, which can grow in nutrient-poor environments (25)(26)(27)(28)(29).…”

Modulation of antibiotic effects on microbial communities by resource competition

“…Moreover, the deleterious effects of diverse bacteriophages on their bacterial host communities are not fully understood 40 , 41 , and are likely to be similarly linked to resource competition as we have shown here. Even changes in environmental parameters like temperature 42 , osmolarity 43 , or pH 44 affect growth rate and hence rescale consumption rates in species-dependent manners. In vitro measurements of the sensitivities of each community member to such parameters could be combined with parameterization of the competitive landscape 25 to enable quantitative prediction of community responses.…”

Antibiotic effects on microbial communities are modulated by resource competition

“…Moreover, microbial communities including the gut microbiota contain diverse bacteriophages whose deleterious effects on their bacterial host communities are not fully understood (Salmond and Fineran, 2015; Shkoporov et al, 2018). Changes in environmental parameters like temperature (Knapp and Huang, 2022), osmolarity (Tropini et al, 2018), or pH (Amor et al, 2020), likely rescale consumption rates in species-dependent manners similar qualitatively to antibiotics. In vitro measurements of the sensitivities of each community member to such parameters could be combined with parameterization of the competitive landscape (Ho et al ., 2022b) to enable quantitative prediction of community responses.…”