Direct observation of independently moving replisomes in Escherichia coli

Aleksandre Japaridze, Christos Gogou, Jacob W. J. Kerssemakers, Huyen My Nguyen and Cees Dekker ()
Additional contact information
Aleksandre Japaridze: Delft University of Technology
Christos Gogou: Delft University of Technology
Jacob W. J. Kerssemakers: Delft University of Technology
Huyen My Nguyen: Delft University of Technology
Cees Dekker: Delft University of Technology

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract The replication and transfer of genomic material from a cell to its progeny are vital processes in all living systems. Here we visualize the process of chromosome replication in widened E. coli cells. Monitoring the replication of single chromosomes yields clear examples of replication bubbles that reveal that the two replisomes move independently from the origin to the terminus of replication along each of the two arms of the circular chromosome, providing direct support for the so-called train-track model, and against a factory model for replisomes. The origin of replication duplicates near midcell, initially splitting to random directions and subsequently towards the poles. The probability of successful segregation of chromosomes significantly decreases with increasing cell width, indicating that chromosome confinement by the cell boundary is an important driver of DNA segregation. Our findings resolve long standing questions in bacterial chromosome organization.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16946-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-16946-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16946-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().