Proteins on the move: dynamic protein localization in prokaryotes

Despite their small size and lack of obvious intracellular structures, bacteria have a complex and dynamic intracellular organization. Recent work has shown that many proteins, and even regions of the chromosome, are localized to specific subcellular regions that can change over time, sometimes extraordinarily fast. Protein function can depend on cellular position, so the analysis of the intracellular location of a protein can be crucial for understanding its activity. Because regulatory proteins are among those that reside at specific cellular sites, it is now necessary to consider three-dimensional organization when describing the genetic networks that control bacterial cells.