How bacterial cell division might cheat turgor pressure - a unified mechanism of septal division in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.
Abstract
An important question for bacterial cell division is how the invaginating septum can
overcome the turgor force generated by the high osmolarity of the cytoplasm. I suggest
that it may not need to. Several studies in Gram-negative bacteria have shown that
the periplasm is isoosmolar with the cytoplasm. Indirect evidence suggests that this
is also true for Gram-positive bacteria. In this case the invagination of the septum
takes place within the uniformly high osmotic pressure environment, and does not have
to fight turgor pressure. A related question is how the V-shaped constriction of Gram-negative
bacteria relates to the plate-like septum of Gram-positive bacteria. I collected evidence
that Gram-negative bacteria have a latent capability of forming plate-like septa,
and present a model in which septal division is the basic mechanism in both Gram-positive
and Gram-negative bacteria.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16448Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1002/bies.201700045Publication Info
Erickson, Harold P (2017). How bacterial cell division might cheat turgor pressure - a unified mechanism of septal
division in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, 39(8). 10.1002/bies.201700045. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16448.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Harold Paul Erickson
James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology
Cytoskeleton: It is now clear that the actin and microtubule cytoskeleton originated
in bacteria. Our major research is on FtsZ, the bacterial tubulin homolog, which assembles
into a contractile ring that divides the bacterium. We have studied FtsZ assembly
in vitro, and found that it assembles into thin protofilaments (pfs). Dozens of these
pfs are further clustered to form the contractile Z-ring in vivo. Some important discoveries
in the last ten years include:
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