Related papers: Preferential localization of the bacterial nucleoi…
The unconstrained genomic DNA of bacteria forms a coil, which volume exceeds 1000 times the volume of the cell. Since prokaryotes lack a membrane-bound nucleus, in sharp contrast with eukaryotes, the DNA may consequently be expected to…
The mechanism responsible for the compaction of the genomic DNA of bacteria inside a structure called the nucleoid is a longstanding but still lively debated question. Most puzzling is the fact that the nucleoid occupies only a small…
The volume occupied by unconstrained bacterial DNA in physiological solutions exceeds 1000 times the volume of the cell. Still, it is confined to a well defined region of the cell called the nucleoid, which occupies only a fraction of the…
This work addresses the question of the interplay of DNA demixing and supercoiling in bacterial cells. Demixing of DNA from other globular macromolecules results from the overall repulsion between all components of the system and leads to…
The volume occupied by the unconstrained genomic DNA of prokaryotes in saline solutions is thousand times larger than the cell. Moreover, it is not separated from the rest of the cell by a membrane. Nevertheless, it occupies only a small…
The genomic DNA of bacteria occupies only a fraction of the cell called the nucleoid, although it is not bounded by any membrane and would occupy a volume hundreds of times larger than the cell in the absence of constraints. The two most…
The chromosomal DNA of bacteria is folded into a compact body called the nucleoid, which is composed essentially of DNA (80%), RNA (10%), and a number of different proteins (10%). These nucleoid proteins act as regulators of gene expression…
Despite the absence of a membrane-enclosed nucleus, the bacterial DNA is typically condensed into a compact body - the nucleoid. This compaction influences the localization and dynamics of many cellular processes including transcription,…
Positioning of nucleosomes along eukaryotic genomes plays an important role in their organization and regulation. There are many different factors affecting the location of nucleosomes. Some can be viewed as preferential binding of a single…
Electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction studies of dormant E. coli cells revealed several forms of nucleoid condensation: quasi - nanocrystalline, quasi -liquid crystalline (or spore-like) and folded nucleosome - like structure. Of…
Recent experimental and theoretical approaches have attempted to quantify the physical organization (compaction and geometry) of the bacterial chromosome with its complement of proteins (the nucleoid). The genomic DNA exists in a complex…
Bacterial chromosome replication occurs in the absence of a canonical spindle apparatus; yet it reliably produces organised and segregated genomes. While both passive and active mechanisms have been investigated, DNA replication itself is a…
DNA supercoiling is central to many fundamental processes of living organisms. Its average level along the chromosome and over time reflects the dynamic equilibrium of opposite activities of topoisomerases, which are required to relax…
In bacteria such as $\textit{Escherichia coli}$, DNA is compacted into a nucleoid near the cell center, while ribosomes$-$molecular complexes that translate messenger RNAs (mRNAs) into proteins$-$are mainly localized at the poles. We study…
Colloids self-assemble into various organized superstructures determined by particle interactions. There is a tremendous progress in both the scientific understanding and applications of self-assemblies of single-type identical particles.…
The mechanism and driving forces of chromosome segregation in the bacterial cell cycle of E. coli is one of the least understood events in its life cycle. Using principles of entropic repulsion between polymer loops confined in a cylinder,…
In eukaryotic genomes, nucleosomes function to compact DNA and to regulate access to it both by simple physical occlusion and by providing the substrate for numerous covalent epigenetic tags. While nucleosome positions in vitro are…
Mechanical interactions among cells in a growing microbial colony can significantly influence the colony's spatial genetic structure and, thus, evolutionary outcomes such as the fates of rare mutations. Here, we computationally investigate…
The plane of bacterial cell division must be precisely positioned. In the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus, the proteins PomX and PomY form a large cluster, which is tethered to the nucleoid by the ATPase PomZ and moves in a stochastic, but…
We present a statistical-mechanical analysis of the positioning of nucleosomes along one of the chromosomes of yeast DNA as a function of the strength of the binding potential and of the chemical potential of the nucleosomes. We find a…