Physical descriptions of the bacterial nucleoid at large scales, and their biological implications

Physics – Biological Physics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

28 pages, submitted to Reports on Progress in Physics

Scientific paper

Recent experimental and theoretical approaches have attempted to quantify the physical organization (compaction and geometry) of the bacterial chromosome with its complement of proteins (the nucleoid). The genomic DNA exists in a complex and dynamic protein-rich state, which is highly organised at various length scales. This has implications on modulating (when not enabling) the core biological processes of replication, transcription, segregation. We overview the progress in this area, driven in the last few years by new scientific ideas and new interdisciplinary experimental techniques, ranging from high space- and time-resolution microscopy to high-throughput genomics employing sequencing to map different aspects of the nucleoid-related interactome. The aim of this review is to present the wide spectrum of experimental and theoretical findings coherently, from a physics viewpoint. We also discuss some attempts of interpretation that unify different results, highlighting the role that statistical and soft condensed matter physics, and in particular classic and more modern tools from the theory of polymers, plays in describing this system of fundamental biological importance, and pointing to possible directions for future investigation.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Physical descriptions of the bacterial nucleoid at large scales, and their biological implications does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Physical descriptions of the bacterial nucleoid at large scales, and their biological implications, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Physical descriptions of the bacterial nucleoid at large scales, and their biological implications will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-6839

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.