Building bridges within the bacterial chromosome

All organisms must dramatically compact their genomes to accommodate DNA within the cell. Bacteria use a set of DNA-binding proteins with low sequence specificity called nucleoid-associated proteins (NAPs) to assist in chromosome condensation and organization. By bending or bridging DNA, NAPs also facilitate chromosome segregation and regulate gene expression. Over the past decade, emerging single-molecule and chromosome conformation capture techniques have investigated the molecular mechanisms by which NAPs remodel and organize the bacterial chromosome. In this review we describe how such approaches reveal the biochemical mechanisms of three NAPs that are believed to facilitate DNA bridging: histone-like nucleoid structuring protein (H-NS), ParB, and structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC). These three proteins form qualitatively different DNA bridges, leading to varied effects on transcription and chromosome segregation.