Article
- The EMBO Journal (2007) 26, 1615 - 1623
- doi:10.1038/sj.emboj.7601610
Published online: 1 March 2007
Subject Category:
Positioning of chemosensory clusters in E. coli and its relation to cell division
Sebastian Thiem1, David Kentner1 and Victor Sourjik1
- Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie der Universität Heidelberg (ZMBH), Heidelberg, Germany
Correspondence to:
Victor Sourjik, Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie der Universität Heidelberg (ZMBH), Im Neuenheimer Feld 282, Heidelberg 69120, Germany. Tel.: +49 6221 546858; Fax: +49 6221 545894; E-mail: v.sourjik@zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de
Received 11 August 2006; Accepted 25 January 2007
Abstract
Chemotaxis receptors and associated signalling proteins in Escherichia coli form clusters that consist of thousands of molecules and are the largest native protein complexes described to date in bacteria. Clusters are located at the cell poles and laterally along the cell body, and play an important role in signal transduction. Much work has been done to study the structure and function of receptor clusters, but the significance of their positioning and the underlying mechanisms are not understood. Here, we used fluorescence imaging to study cluster distribution and follow cluster dynamics during cell growth. Our data show that lateral clusters localise to specific periodic positions along the cell body, which mark future division sites and are involved in the localisation of the replication machinery. The chemoreceptor cluster positioning is thus intricately related to the overall structure and division of an E. coli cell.
Keywords:
- bacteria,
- chemotaxis,
- cytokinesis,
- DNA replication,
- signal transduction
