Delayed entry of an anti-σF gene (blue) helps spores develop.

Losick/Elsevier

Symmetry can be broken in a bacterial cell by using the order of genes on the chromosome, according to Jonathan Dworkin and Richard Losick of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

The gene whose position is key is an antagonist to the Bacillus subtilus transcription factor σF. Although σF directs the process of spore formation, Losick suspected that the instability of SpoIIAB, the anti-σF, might be the key to asymmetry. An exaggeration of SpoIIAB instability in the developing spore would tip the balance, but there was no clue as to how this might be achieved.

Now Dworkin and Losick show that replenishment of SpoIIAB is temporarily absent in the developing spore because an early cytokinesis leaves the chromosomal region containing the spoIIAB gene stranded in the mother cell. Only...

The Rockefeller University Press
2001
The Rockefeller University Press
2001
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