Premium
Ring, helix, sphere and cylinder: the basic geometry of prokaryotic cell division
Author(s) -
Vicente Miguel,
Löwe Jan
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
embo reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.584
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1469-3178
pISSN - 1469-221X
DOI - 10.1038/sj.embor.embor885
Subject(s) - geometry , helix (gastropod) , division (mathematics) , ring (chemistry) , cell division , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , physics , biophysics , cell , chemistry , genetics , mathematics , paleontology , arithmetic , organic chemistry , snail
This workshop took place at the Juan March Institute, Madrid, Spain, between 16 and 18 December 2002 and was organized by Miguel Vicente, Piet de Boer and Jeff Errington. It was the 146th in the series of International Biology meetings of the Juan March Institute for Study and Research; it marked the retirement of Andres Gonzalez, who has, until now, been responsible for their technical organization. In the name of all the scientific organizers of these meetings, we express our gratitude to him for facilitating our task to the point of making it a pleasure, and we dedicate this report to him.![][1] Bacteria have sophisticated molecular machineries dedicated to regulating their growth and division with superb accuracy. Although many components of the prokaryotic division and DNA segregation apparatus are conserved, some of them have distinct functions in different bacteria. Unsurprisingly, some elements of bacterial division have been incorporated into the division machinery of eukaryotic organelles, whereas others have been modified for eukaryotic roles less related to those that they performed in their prokaryotic ancestors. Molecular microbiology has been transformed during the past ten years by the availability of high‐powered microscopes, green fluorescent protein (GFP)‐fusion proteins, and immunostaining procedures that allow proteins to be localized within bacteria. The result of this revolution is the finding that many proteins localize to defined regions or oscillate between two locations. Fluorescence labelling has also shown that bacterial DNA is segregated in a rapid and ordered fashion, very much as it is during mitosis in eukaryotes. We are now faced with the task of determining how the rapid localization of these cell constituents is orchestrated—a problem that traditionally has been associated with eukaryotic cell biology. This workshop gathered together 18 speakers and 32 participants to discuss recent progress in the description of the elements and … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif