This can happen on two levels. The first is individual expression of genes in a culture or habitat based on the bacteria never being in the exact same growth phase and that the growth phase determines the expression of genes including those encoding enzymes. On a larger level, most bacteria grow in aggregates or in biofilms when they occupy a habitat. Biofilms are dynamic structures where bacteria sense the environment and signal between each other. This often lead to differential gene expression as a biofilm operates like an organism with some level of specialization between the individual bacteria. There are many examples of this biofilm specialization in the literature.

It might possible because of the time lag or and competition or might be two colonies with similar visibility might be Produced.

This can happen on two levels. The first is individual expression of genes in a culture or habitat based on the bacteria never being in the exact same growth phase and that the growth phase determines the expression of genes including those encoding enzymes. On a larger level, most bacteria grow in aggregates or in biofilms when they occupy a habitat. Biofilms are dynamic structures where bacteria sense the environment and signal between each other. This often lead to differential gene expression as a biofilm operates like an organism with some level of specialization between the individual bacteria. There are many examples of this biofilm specialization in the literature.

It is like different animals are living in a jungle having different feeding habits, and they all play very critical role in sustainability of ecosystem. Bacteria also follow the same path and are diverse in their structure and function.

The first part. The bacteria have constitutive enzymes ( they are produced at any environmental conditions), and induced enzymes (they produced only if the substrate is present en the environment. So the enzymes produced by a bacterium depend on the media culture and the conditions (pH, temperature, potential redox, ionic strength, substrates concentration, substrates proportion, agitation, oxygen dissolve, etc.). The other hand, what do you mean ....bacteria while sharing the same habitat and environmental conditions?. Sharing with other kind of bacteria?.

The study of enzymes depends on what kind of enzymes to give the bacteria the appropriate culture conditions and to force the bacteria to express the enzyme you need to study. You must be more specific in your question.

There are many factors. From ecological perspective, resource partitioning is one mechanism where organisms evolve to traits specializing in use of different limiting resources in an ecosystem so that competing species cannot be easily wiped out. In you case, bacteria might produce different enzymes to utilize different resource in the same habitat. Synergistic interactions might occur among species. From molecular perspective, the bacterial genome determines the potential of one species to produce which enzymes. Importantly, many environment cues, such as presence of certain substrate, also regulate the expression of certain enzyme genes.

I have isolated 20 bacteria samples form a source and found that only three isolates are producing a specific enzyme while other 17 isolates are not producing. All these bacterial samples are isolated from the same source. I want to know that why 17 strains are not producing the enzyme of interest?

For bacteria sharing the same habitat and environmental conditions often we observed differences in production of large amount of enzymes as the ability to produce several enzymes depend on the genes expression so different within the isolates of the same species

Thank you all for the valuable information.

Since bacterial cells usually contain about 12% of proteins of bacterio phages among the total cellular proteins (submitted for publiation to Pediatric Dermatology), Such a differences in gene expression seems to be usual. Therefore, your finding seems very interesting for me.

It might happen because individual expression of genes in a culture or habitat based on the bacteria never being in the exact same growth phase and that the growth phase determines the expression of genes including those encoding enzymes

The being alive produce different metabolites to protect itself and survive in the event of need. Even if the living conditions are identical, the species can be different or can not undergo the same conditions in the same way. Finally the enzymes are used for specific reactions, thus their number and their contents depend on each type of bacteria or quite simply of each bacterium. For example the men (who are same species) will not tolerate salt or sugar in the same way, even if one put them under identical conditions.

There are specie-specific characteristics

It depends upon the gene level, one gene gets activated and other gets repressed ........so variation comes in gene level only....so we can study the mechanism by different markers..

Abubkar, I guess I have already added this reason in the answer thread.

Which kind of markers we can use for studing the mechanisms?

Sobrasua Ibim

10/5

While bacteria are omnipresent they may be specific for different parts of the environment depending on their feeding needs and nutrient availability. The environment where they live therefore the biological entity, their genotypes and the enzymes produced. It appears the differences in enzyme isolates may due to epigenetic influence of the envirionment