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Updated: Jul 8, 2026

Super-resolution Imaging of the Bacterial Division Machinery
Published on: January 21, 2013
Perpendicular planes of FtsZ arcs in spheroidal Escherichia coli cells
E Pas1, M Einav, C L Woldringh
1Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, BioCentrum, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 316, 1098 SM, the, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Abstract:
Division planes in Escherichia coli, usually restricted to one dimension of the rod-shaped cell, were induced at all possible planes by transforming the cells to spheroids with mecillinam (inactivating PbpA). Such cells displayed many nucleoids and arcs of FtsZ, genetically tagged to green fluorescent protein, that developed to rings at constriction sites all around their surface. These observations are consistent with the view (Woldringh et al., J. Bacteriol. 176 (1994) 6030-6038) that nucleoids, forced during replication to segregate in the length axis of the cell by the rigid bacillary envelope, induce assembly of FtsZ to division rings in between them.
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