The Ghost in the Machine: Is the Bacterial Chromosome a Phantom Chain?

Abstract

In the classic picture of bacterial genome organization, the bacterial chromosome is considered to be a disordered polymer, like spaghetti confined in a bag. Progress in high-resolution microscopy radically advanced our understanding of chromosomal organization and completely toppled this classic picture. Many experiments in recent years have revealed intriguing order in chromosomal structure at different length- and timescales (1,2). The questions that arise from these observations include: What is the origin of multiscale order? And what does it mean?