Mapping the driving forces of chromosome structure and segregation in Escherichia coli

The mechanism responsible for the accurate partitioning of newly replicated Escherichia coli chromosomes into daughter cells remains a mystery. In this article, we use automated cell cycle imaging to quantitatively analyse the cell cycle dynamics of the origin of replication (oriC) in hundreds of ce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nucleic acids research 2013-08, Vol.41 (15), p.7370-7377
Main Authors: Kuwada, Nathan J, Cheveralls, Keith C, Traxler, Beth, Wiggins, Paul A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cell Division
Centromere - genetics
Centromere - metabolism
Chromosome Mapping - methods
Chromosome Segregation
Chromosomes, Bacterial - genetics
Chromosomes, Bacterial - metabolism
DNA Replication
Escherichia coli - genetics
Escherichia coli - metabolism
Genetic Loci
Genome Integrity, Repair and
Models, Molecular
Replication Origin
Stochastic Processes
Time Factors
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Summary:The mechanism responsible for the accurate partitioning of newly replicated Escherichia coli chromosomes into daughter cells remains a mystery. In this article, we use automated cell cycle imaging to quantitatively analyse the cell cycle dynamics of the origin of replication (oriC) in hundreds of cells. We exploit the natural stochastic fluctuations of the chromosome structure to map both the spatial and temporal dependence of the motional bias segregating the chromosomes. The observed map is most consistent with force generation by an active mechanism, but one that generates much smaller forces than canonical molecular motors, including those driving eukaryotic chromosome segregation.
ISSN:0305-1048
1362-4962
DOI:10.1093/nar/gkt468