Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 10, 2026

Determination of the Optimal Chromosomal Locations for a DNA Element in Escherichia coli Using a Novel Transposon-mediated Approach
Published on: September 11, 2017
Gene loci fluctuations reveal bacterial chromosome dynamical organization
Gaurav Bajpai1,2, Samuel Safran3, Joel Stavans4
1Department of Chemical and Biological Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
None:
Chromosomal sites in rod-like bacteria move sub-diffusely, driven by the out-of-equilibrium nature of the viscoelastic, crowded intracellular environment. Furthermore, it has been shown that there is a pronounced dynamical asymmetry between longitudinal (long-axis) and transverse (radial) motions, manifested in different exponents in the mean-square displacements , and respectively. Here, using polymer simulations and experimental observations of a locus in Bacillus subtilis, we substantiate the notion that asymmetric dynamics are a result of the asymmetric structure of the bacterial chromosome modeled as a bottlebrush polymer in a poor solvent. Our simulations recapitulate the observed asymmetry as well as the range of the observed exponent values that are related to scaling models of polymer dynamics, lending support to the notion that asymmetric dynamics is a consequence of the bottlebrush structure of the bacterial chromosome.
Related Concept Videos
Coordination of Gene Expression Processes in Bacteria
Genomic DNA in Prokaryotes
Genomic Diversity in Bacteria
Although bacterial genomes are much...
Modern Molecular Taxonomy
Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation
The recognition sites for Cre recombinase called LoxP...
Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?
In contrast, regions which code...

