Protein localization during the Caulobacter crescentus cell cycle

Abstract

New research on bacterial cells has demonstrated that they have a dynamic and complex subcellular organization. Work in Caulobacter crescentus shows that essential and nonessential proteins localize to discrete positions in the cell as a function of cell-cycle progression. The flagellum and chemotaxis receptor are asymmetrically localized to a single pole in the predivisional cell by coordinated proteolysis and transcriptional regulation. Cell type- and compartment-specific localization of the CtrA global transcriptional regulator is essential for proper cell-cycle progression, and subcellular localization of key chromosome partitioning proteins is correlated with proper nucleoid segregation. Given this structural complexity, we are driven to ask how localization is achieved, and to what end.