Skip to content
1887

Microbiology Society logo Microbiology

Volume 166, Issue 6

Transient enhanced cell division by blocking DNA synthesis in Open Access

Abstract

Duplication of the bacterial nucleoid is necessary for cell division hence specific arrest of DNA replication inhibits divisions culminating in filamentation, nucleoid dispersion and appearance of a-nucleated cells. It is demonstrated here that during the first 10 min however, enhanced residual divisions: the proportion of constricted cells doubled (to 40%), nucleoids contracted and cells remodelled dimensions: length decreased and width increased. The preliminary data provides further support to the existence of temporal and spatial couplings between the nucleoid/replisome and the sacculus/divisome, and is consistent with the idea that bacillary bacteria modulate width during the division process exclusively.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): cell division and dimensions , DNA replication and nucleoid morphology
Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation (Award 2017004)
    • Principal Award Recipient: Professor Arieh Zaritsky
© 2020 The Authors
  • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.000888
2020-03-02
2025-12-15

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/micro/166/6/516.html?itemId=/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.000888&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Bazill GW. Lethal unbalanced growth in bacteria. Nature 1967; 216:346–349 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Donachie WD. Control of cell division in Escherichia coli: experiments with thymine starvation. J Bacteriol 1969; 100:260–268 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Ahmad SI, Kirk SH, Eisenstark A. Thymine metabolism and thymineless death in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Annu Rev Microbiol 1998; 52:591–625 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Khodursky A, Guzmán EC, Hanawalt PC. Thymineless death lives on: new insights into a classic phenomenon. Annu Rev Microbiol 2015; 69:247–263 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Guzmán EC, Martín CM, death T. Thymineless death, at the origin. Front Microbiol 2015; 6:5 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Zaritsky A, Vollmer W, Männik J, Liu C. Does the Nucleoid Determine Cell Dimensions in Escherichia coli?. Front Microbiol 2019; 10:1717 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Martín CM, Guzmán EC. DNA replication initiation as a key element in thymineless death. DNA Repair 2011; 10:94–101 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Martín CM, Viguera E, Guzmán EC. Abortive initiations of chromosome replication under thymine starvation correlate with cell death in Escherichia coli . DNA Repair 2014; 18:10–17 [View Article]
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Thanbichler M. Synchronization of chromosome dynamics and cell division in bacteria. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol 2010; 2:a000331 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Zaritsky A, Woldringh CL. Chromosome replication, cell growth, division and shape: a personal perspective. Front Microbiol 2015; 6:756 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Helmstetter C, Cooper S, Pierucci O, Revelas E. On the bacterial life sequence. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 1968; 33:809–822 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Jimenez-Sanchez A. Equations of a life. Algorithmic analysis of the bacterial cell cycle and the chromosome replication LAP Lambert Academic Publishing; 2018ISBN-13 978-613-9-57419-3
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Zaritsky A, Wang P, Vischer NOE. Instructive simulation of the bacterial cell division cycle. Microbiology 2011; 157:1876–1885 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Bremer H, Chuang L. Cell division after inhibition of chromosome replication in Escherichia coli . J Theor Biol 1981; 93:909–926 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Den Blaauwen T, Buddelmeijer N, Aarsman ME, Hameete CM, Nanninga N. Timing of FtsZ assembly in Escherichia coli . J Bacteriol 1999; 181:5167–5175 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Bigot S, Sivanathan V, Possoz C, Barre F-X, Cornet F. Ftsk, a literate chromosome segregation machine. Mol Microbiol 2007; 64:1434–1441 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Dubarry N, Barre F-X. Fully efficient chromosome dimer resolution in Escherichia coli cells lacking the integral membrane domain of FtsK. Embo J 2010; 29:597–605 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Meacock PA, Pritchard RH. Relationship between chromosome replication and cell division in a thymineless mutant of Escherichia coli B/r. J Bacteriol 1975; 122:931–942 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Powell EO. Growth rate and generation time of bacteria, with special reference to continuous culture. J Gen Microbiol 1956; 15:492–511 [View Article][PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Sueoka N, Yoshikawa H. The chromosome of Bacillus subtilis. I. theory of marker frequency analysis. Genetics 1965; 52:747–757[PubMed]
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.000888
Loading
Transient enhanced cell division by blocking DNA synthesis in Escherichia coli
Microbiology 166, 516 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.000888
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.000888
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.000888
Loading

Data & Media loading...

Most cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error