Does the Nucleoid Determine Cell Dimensions in Escherichia coli?
Bacillary, Gram-negative bacteria grow by elongation with no discernible change in width, but during faster growth in richer media the cells are also wider. The mechanism regulating the change in cell width W during transitions from slow to fast growth is a fundamental, unanswered question in molecu...
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2019-08-01
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Series: | Frontiers in Microbiology |
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Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2019.01717/full |
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author | Arieh Zaritsky Waldemar Vollmer Jaan Männik Chenli Liu |
author_facet | Arieh Zaritsky Waldemar Vollmer Jaan Männik Chenli Liu |
author_sort | Arieh Zaritsky |
collection | DOAJ |
description | Bacillary, Gram-negative bacteria grow by elongation with no discernible change in width, but during faster growth in richer media the cells are also wider. The mechanism regulating the change in cell width W during transitions from slow to fast growth is a fundamental, unanswered question in molecular biology. The value of W that changes in the divisome and during the division process only, is related to the nucleoid complexity, determined by the rates of growth and of chromosome replication; the former is manipulated by nutritional conditions and the latter—by thymine limitation of thyA mutants. Such spatio-temporal regulation is supported by existence of a minimal possible distance between successive replisomes, so-called eclipse that limits the number of replisomes to a maximum. Breaching this limit by slowing replication in fast growing cells results in maximal nucleoid complexity that is associated with maximum cell width, supporting the notion of Nucleoid-to-Divisome signal transmission. Physical signal(s) may be delivered from the nucleoid to assemble the divisome and to fix the value of W in the nascent cell pole. |
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institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 1664-302X |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-12-10T11:33:50Z |
publishDate | 2019-08-01 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
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series | Frontiers in Microbiology |
spelling | doaj.art-b386e2c9cc3f4e48b2de8dd739834d512022-12-22T01:50:29ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Microbiology1664-302X2019-08-011010.3389/fmicb.2019.01717466538Does the Nucleoid Determine Cell Dimensions in Escherichia coli?Arieh Zaritsky0Waldemar Vollmer1Jaan Männik2Chenli Liu3Faculty of Natural Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, IsraelCentre for Bacterial Cell Biology, Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United KingdomDepartment of Physics & Astronomy, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, United StatesShenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, ChinaBacillary, Gram-negative bacteria grow by elongation with no discernible change in width, but during faster growth in richer media the cells are also wider. The mechanism regulating the change in cell width W during transitions from slow to fast growth is a fundamental, unanswered question in molecular biology. The value of W that changes in the divisome and during the division process only, is related to the nucleoid complexity, determined by the rates of growth and of chromosome replication; the former is manipulated by nutritional conditions and the latter—by thymine limitation of thyA mutants. Such spatio-temporal regulation is supported by existence of a minimal possible distance between successive replisomes, so-called eclipse that limits the number of replisomes to a maximum. Breaching this limit by slowing replication in fast growing cells results in maximal nucleoid complexity that is associated with maximum cell width, supporting the notion of Nucleoid-to-Divisome signal transmission. Physical signal(s) may be delivered from the nucleoid to assemble the divisome and to fix the value of W in the nascent cell pole.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2019.01717/fullcell cycle and dimensionsnucleoid structure and complexitynutritional shiftstransertioneclipsephysical effector |
spellingShingle | Arieh Zaritsky Waldemar Vollmer Jaan Männik Chenli Liu Does the Nucleoid Determine Cell Dimensions in Escherichia coli? Frontiers in Microbiology cell cycle and dimensions nucleoid structure and complexity nutritional shifts transertion eclipse physical effector |
title | Does the Nucleoid Determine Cell Dimensions in Escherichia coli? |
title_full | Does the Nucleoid Determine Cell Dimensions in Escherichia coli? |
title_fullStr | Does the Nucleoid Determine Cell Dimensions in Escherichia coli? |
title_full_unstemmed | Does the Nucleoid Determine Cell Dimensions in Escherichia coli? |
title_short | Does the Nucleoid Determine Cell Dimensions in Escherichia coli? |
title_sort | does the nucleoid determine cell dimensions in escherichia coli |
topic | cell cycle and dimensions nucleoid structure and complexity nutritional shifts transertion eclipse physical effector |
url | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2019.01717/full |
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