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Nanoengineering

Super symmetry in cell division

Nature Nanotechnology volume 10, pages 655–656 (2015)Cite this article

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Bacterial cells can be sculpted into different shapes using nanofabricated chambers and then used to explore the spatial adaptation of protein oscillations that play an important role in cell division.

In the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC there is a stone plaque with an illustration of a eukaryotic cell; the cell is replete with organelles and resembles the blueprint of a bustling city. Relegated to one corner of the plaque is an illustration of a 'simple' bacterial cell; this cell contains only a few dots to represent ribosomes and a ball of DNA jumbled up like iPhone earbuds at the bottom of a backpack. Given what we now know about the complex and sophisticated organization of bacterial cells, and the ways in which our understanding continues to develop rapidly, this exhibit may have to be reimagined. An illustration of this complexity is the ability of molecules to localize to the right place at the right time in the cell. The mechanisms by which this happens still need to be clarified, and a key challenge in pursuit of this goal has been finding ways to define and maintain cells with arbitrary morphologies1. Writing in Nature Nanotechnology, Cees Dekker and colleagues at Delft University of Technology now show that bacterial cells can be sculpted into different shapes, including squares and triangles, with the help of nanofabricated chambers2. These sculpted cells can then be used to demonstrate that the Min system — a collection of three proteins that oscillate back and forth between the poles of rod-shaped Escherichia coli cells — can locate the axes of symmetry in a wide range of geometries and thereby robustly define planes of division.

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Figure 1: Min proteins oscillate along the symmetry axes of a wide variety of cell shapes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kerwyn Casey Huang is in the Department of Bioengineering, and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA,

    Kerwyn Casey Huang

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  1. Kerwyn Casey Huang
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Correspondence to Kerwyn Casey Huang.

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Huang, K. Super symmetry in cell division. Nature Nanotech 10, 655–656 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.148

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