The terminal region of the E. coli chromosome localises at the periphery of the nucleoid

BMC Microbiology

Research Article

Jean-Christophe Meile¹  François Cornet¹  Carine Pages¹  Jean-Yves Bouet¹  Mathieu Stouf¹  Romain Mercier² 

[1] Université de Toulouse; Université Paul Sabatier; Laboratoire de Microbiologie et Génétique Moléculaires, F-31000, Toulouse, France;Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; LMGM, F-31000, Toulouse, France;Université de Toulouse; Université Paul Sabatier; Laboratoire de Microbiologie et Génétique Moléculaires, F-31000, Toulouse, France;Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; LMGM, F-31000, Toulouse, France;Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences, The Medical School, University of Newcastle, 2nd Floor, Catherine Cookson Building, Framlington Place, NE2 4HH, Newcastle, UK;

关键词: Cell Diameter;    Cell Periphery;    Cell Width;    Apparent Distance;    Single Focus;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2180-11-28

 received in 2010-11-15, accepted in 2011-02-02,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundBacterial chromosomes are organised into a compact and dynamic structures termed nucleoids. Cytological studies in model rod-shaped bacteria show that the different regions of the chromosome display distinct and specific sub-cellular positioning and choreographies during the course of the cell cycle. The localisation of chromosome loci along the length of the cell has been described. However, positioning of loci across the width of the cell has not been determined.ResultsHere, we show that it is possible to assess the mean positioning of chromosomal loci across the width of the cell using two-dimension images from wide-field fluorescence microscopy. Observed apparent distributions of fluorescent-tagged loci of the E. coli chromosome along the cell diameter were compared with simulated distributions calculated using a range of cell width positioning models. Using this method, we detected the migration of chromosome loci towards the cell periphery induced by production of the bacteriophage T4 Ndd protein. In the absence of Ndd production, loci outside the replication terminus were located either randomly along the nucleoid width or towards the cell centre whereas loci inside the replication terminus were located at the periphery of the nucleoid in contrast to other loci.ConclusionsOur approach allows to reliably observing the positioning of chromosome loci along the width of E. coli cells. The terminal region of the chromosome is preferentially located at the periphery of the nucleoid consistent with its specific roles in chromosome organisation and dynamics.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Meile et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.