Abstract
The origins of Molecular Biology and Bacterial Physiology are reviewed, from our personal standpoints, emphasizing the coupling between bacterial growth, chromosome replication and cell division, dimensions and shape. Current knowledge is discussed with historical perspective, summarizing past and present achievements and enlightening ideas for future studies. An interactive simulation program of the bacterial cell division cycle (BCD), described as “The Central Dogma in Bacteriology,” is briefly represented. The coupled process of transcription/translation of genes encoding membrane proteins and insertion into the membrane (so-called transertion) is invoked as the functional relationship between the only two unique macromolecules in the cell, DNA and peptidoglycan embodying the nucleoid and the sacculus respectively. We envision that the total amount of DNA associated with the replication terminus, so called “nucleoid complexity,” is directly related to cell size and shape through the transertion process. Accordingly, the primary signal for cell division transmitted by DNA dynamics (replication, transcription and segregation) to the peptidoglycan biosynthetic machinery is of a physico-chemical nature, e.g., stress in the plasma membrane, relieving nucleoid occlusion in the cell’s center hence enabling the divisome to assemble and function between segregated daughter nucleoids.
Highlights
Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Specialty section: This article was submitted to Microbial Physiology and Metabolism, a section of the journal Frontiers in Microbiology
The primary signal for cell division transmitted by DNA dynamics to the peptidoglycan biosynthetic machinery is of a physico-chemical nature, e.g., stress in the plasma membrane, relieving nucleoid occlusion in the cell’s center enabling the divisome to assemble and function between segregated daughter nucleoids
How do single-cell growth studies in microfluidic channels measure up to the requirements for steady state growth? It appears that constancy of growth rate and length distributions of newborn cells dividing in the channels can accurately be monitored (Wang et al, 2010; Campos et al, 2014; Osella et al, 2014; TaheriAraghi et al, 2015)
Summary
Bacteriology was conceived by the Dutch Scientist Antony van Leeuwenhoek in the 17th Century (Porter, 1976), but considered “The Last Stronghold of Lamarckism” until 1943, when the ingenious Fluctuation Test was performed (Luria and Delbrück, 1943). The Phage Group of reductionists led by Max Delbrück (Cairns et al, 1966) revolutionized Basic Genetics to explain the flow of genetic information from Mendelian genes to proteins in molecular terms. This transformation was preceded by the era of protein biochemistry that could not pass the concept hurdle of enzymecannot-make-enzyme paradox (Stent and Calendar, 1978). Merging molecular biology with general bacteriology, basic genetics and sophisticated microscopic and physical techniques discovered the sexuality and circularity of the bacterial chromosome (Jacob and Wollman, 1956; Cairns, 1963; Hayes, 1968), its replication schedule (Helmstetter et al, 1968), and the nucleoid structure (Kellenberger et al, 1958; Woldringh and Odijk, 1999)
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