Global regulators enable bacterial adaptation to a phenotypic trade-off

Cellular fitness depends on multiple phenotypes that must be balanced during evolutionary adaptation. For instance, coordinating growth and motility is critical for microbial colonization and cancer invasiveness. In bacteria, these phenotypes are controlled by local regulators that target single operons, as well as by global regulators that impact hundreds of genes. However, how the different levels of regulation interact during evolution is unclear. Here, we measured in Escherichia coli how CRISPR-mediated knockdowns of global and local transcription factors impact growth and motility in three environments. We found that local regulators mostly modulate motility, whereas global regulators jointly modulate growth and motility. Simulated evolutionary trajectories indicate that local regulators are typically altered first to improve motility before global regulators adjust growth and motility following their trade-off. These findings highlight the role of pleiotropic regulators in the adaptation of multiple phenotypes.