Abstract
In Escherichia coli the Min protein system plays an important role in positioning the division site. We show that this system also has an effect on timing of cell division. We do this in a quantitative way by measuring the cell division waiting time (defined as time difference between appearance of a division site and the division event) and the Z-ring existence time. Both quantities are found to be different in WT and cells without functional Min system. We develop a series of theoretical models whose predictions are compared with the experimental findings. Continuous improvement leads to a final model that is able to explain all relevant experimental observations. In particular, it shows that the chromosome segregation defect caused by the absence of Min proteins has an important influence on timing of cell division. Our results indicate that the Min system affects the septum formation rate. In the absence of the Min proteins this rate is reduced, leading to the observed strongly randomized cell division events and the longer division waiting times.
Highlights
Living in ever-changing environments bacteria are frequently forced to adjust internal processes to external conditions
Our investigation was triggered by our experimental observation that the distribution of inter-division times of individual wild type cells (WT, strain TB28) and Min deletion mutant cells are very different
In E. coli the Min proteins achieve this by performing spatial oscillations
Summary
Living in ever-changing environments bacteria are frequently forced to adjust internal processes to external conditions. This is done by signal transduction pathways that sense external or internal signals, and generate an output response from the information encoded by these signals. The input pathway adjusts the behavior of the oscillator to internal or external signals such as light, temperature or nutrition status. In this way it changes, e.g., the phase or the frequency of the oscillation. The interaction between the input and output pathways and the oscillator can occur at different levels, for example by regulation of transcription, translation or at the post-translation level [2,3,4]
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