MinD filament bundles get frayed by MinE treatment.

Suefuji/NAS

Bacterial cell division is restricted to the middle of the cell. This, say Kyoko Suefuji, Regina Valluzzi, and Debabrata RayChaudhuri (Tufts University, Boston, MA), can be explained by polymerization events that oscillate between the two ends of the cell.

The polymerization process forms filaments of MinD at one end of the cell, which sequester MinC from the middle of the cell, thus leaving the bacterial cell division protein FtsZ to do its job. An additional component, MinE, forms a cap on the MinCD crescent so that the inhibitor, MinC, cannot reach the central FtsZ.

These proteins must inhibit division at both ends, and they do so by oscillating from one end of the cell to the other every 50 seconds. In several existing models, self-assembly is a key part of this oscillation. Joe Lutkenhaus (University of...

The Rockefeller University Press
2003
The Rockefeller University Press
2003
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