A Fundamental Unit of Cell Size in Bacteria

Suckjoon Jun; Michael J Rust

doi:10.1016/j.tig.2017.05.001

A Fundamental Unit of Cell Size in Bacteria

Trends Genet. 2017 Jul;33(7):433-435. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2017.05.001. Epub 2017 May 22.

Authors

Suckjoon Jun¹, Michael J Rust²

Affiliations

¹ University of California San Diego, Department of Physics and Section of Molecular Biology, Division of Biology, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. Electronic address: suckjoon.jun@gmail.com.
² University of Chicago, Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, Department of Physics, 900 E 57th St., Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Electronic address: mrust@uchicago.edu.

Abstract

A new study clarifies a relationship between growth, gene expression, and cell size in cyanobacteria. Quite unexpectedly, cyanobacteria and Escherichia coli appear to share an invariance principle to coordinate growth and chromosome replication. This principle allows quantitative predictions of cell size across a range of growth conditions in both organisms.

Publication types

Comment

MeSH terms

Cell Size*
Chromosomes, Bacterial
Cyanobacteria / genetics*
Escherichia coli / genetics*

Grants and funding

R01 GM118565/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States