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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Main Authors: Arieh Zaritsky, Waldemar Vollmer, Jaan Männik, Chenli Liu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-08-01
Series:Frontiers in Microbiology
Subjects:
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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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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AT waldemarvollmer doesthenucleoiddeterminecelldimensionsinescherichiacoli
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AT chenliliu doesthenucleoiddeterminecelldimensionsinescherichiacoli