IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v466y2010i7302d10.1038_nature09152.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spatial organization of the flow of genetic information in bacteria

Author

Listed:
  • Paula Montero Llopis

    (Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA)

  • Audrey F. Jackson

    (Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
    Current address: Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, USA.)

  • Oleksii Sliusarenko

    (Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
    Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA)

  • Ivan Surovtsev

    (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA)

  • Jennifer Heinritz

    (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA)

  • Thierry Emonet

    (Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
    Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA)

  • Christine Jacobs-Wagner

    (Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
    Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
    Section of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA)

Abstract

Eukaryotic cells spatially organize mRNA processes such as translation and mRNA decay. Much less is clear in bacterial cells where the spatial distribution of mature mRNA remains ambiguous. Using a sensitive method based on quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization, we show here that in Caulobacter crescentus and Escherichia coli, chromosomally expressed mRNAs largely display limited dispersion from their site of transcription during their lifetime. We estimate apparent diffusion coefficients at least two orders of magnitude lower than expected for freely diffusing mRNA, and provide evidence in C. crescentus that this mRNA localization restricts ribosomal mobility. Furthermore, C. crescentus RNase E appears associated with the DNA independently of its mRNA substrates. Collectively, our findings show that bacteria can spatially organize translation and, potentially, mRNA decay by using the chromosome layout as a template. This chromosome-centric organization has important implications for cellular physiology and for our understanding of gene expression in bacteria.

Suggested Citation

  • Paula Montero Llopis & Audrey F. Jackson & Oleksii Sliusarenko & Ivan Surovtsev & Jennifer Heinritz & Thierry Emonet & Christine Jacobs-Wagner, 2010. "Spatial organization of the flow of genetic information in bacteria," Nature, Nature, vol. 466(7302), pages 77-81, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:466:y:2010:i:7302:d:10.1038_nature09152
    DOI: 10.1038/nature09152
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09152
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature09152?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elijah Roberts & Andrew Magis & Julio O Ortiz & Wolfgang Baumeister & Zaida Luthey-Schulten, 2011. "Noise Contributions in an Inducible Genetic Switch: A Whole-Cell Simulation Study," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(3), pages 1-21, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:466:y:2010:i:7302:d:10.1038_nature09152. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.