Abstract The Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis can initiate the process of sporulation
under conditions of nutrient limitation. Here, we review some of the last 5 years of work in …

Integration, excision, and inversion of defined DNA segments commonly occur through site-
specific recombination, a process of DNA breakage and reunion that requires no DNA …

Recently, it has been shown that a predicted P-loop ATPase (the HerA or MlaA protein),
which is highly conserved in archaea and also present in many bacteria but absent in …

The replication of the chromosome is among the most essential functions of the bacterial cell
and influences many other cellular mechanisms, from gene expression to cell division. Yet …

FtsK is a DNA translocase that coordinates chromosome segregation and cell division in
bacteria. In addition to its role as activator of XerCD site-specific recombination, FtsK can …

Bacterial chromosomes are organized in replichores of opposite sequence polarity. This
conserved feature suggests a role in chromosome dynamics. Indeed, sequence polarity …

Recent advances in bacterial cell biology have revealed unanticipated structural and
functional complexity, reminiscent of eukaryotic cells. Particular progress has been made in …

The separation and segregation of newly replicated bacterial chromosomes can be
constrained by the formation of circular chromosome dimers caused by crossing over during …

The study of chromosome segregation in bacteria has gained strong insights from the use of
cytology techniques. A global view of chromosome choreography during the cell cycle is …

The formation of DNA loops by the binding of proteins and protein complexes at distal DNA
sites plays a central role in many cellular processes, such as transcription, recombination …