Molecules in Time and Space

Transcription

1 Molecules in Time and Space

2 Molecules in Time and Space Bacterial Shape, Division and Phylogeny Edited by Miguel Vicente CSIC National Biotechnology Centre Javier Tamames BioAlma, S.L. Alfonso Valencia CSIC National Biotechnology Centre and Jesús Mingorance CSIC National Biotechnology Centre KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS NEW YORK, BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW

3 ebook ISBN: Print ISBN: Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. Print 2004 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers New York All rights reserved No part of this ebook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Springer's ebookstore at: and the Springer Global Website Online at:

4 PREFACE This book reviews the progress that recent developments in the way in which bacteria can be visualized, and in the sequencing of full bacterial genomes have brought about to the field of bacterial cell division and morphogenesis. Morphogenesis and cell division are two different but related processes. The shape of the cell is intimately connected to how and where division takes place. In its turn cell shape, or at least its aspect ratio, changes along the division cycle. Morphology and division are processes in which the bacterial cell becomes implicated as a whole, and therefore they are not easily amenable to the analytical in vitro procedures so commonly used by biochemists and molecular biologists. As a result the field has been dominated during long time by biophysical research and genetics that produced valuable images and models but failed to provide molecular mechanisms. Technical developments during the last decade are changing this, and, as described by Janet Siefert in Chapter 1, "Three decades later, for something as simple as prokaryotic morphology, the field has come of age". The application of fluorescence microscopy combined with immunolabelling techniques and GFP-fusions, the use of modern methods to crystallize proteins and solve their structures, and specially the sequencing of whole microbial genomes have changed in few years the way we look at bacterial cells. The old view of the cell as an enzyme bag is being replaced by that of an ordered cellular structure in which many proteins are precisely localized, or move through the cell following precise patterns, this order is reflected also in the organization and the evolution of the bacterial genomes, and it is more prominent in the processes of cell division and morphogenesis than in other cellular processes. The Editors v

5 CONTENTS Chapter 1. The Phylogeny of Bacterial Shape Janet Siefert Chapter 2. Membranes and Prebiotic Evolution: Compartments, Spatial Isolation and the Origin Of Life Ervin Silva and Antonio Lazcano Chapter 3. Topological Domains in the Cell Wall of Escherichia coli Miguel A. de Pedro Chapter 4. Models for Pattern Formation in Bacteria Applied to Bacterial Morphogenesis Hans Meinhardt Chapter 5. The Assembly of Proteins at the Cell Division Site William Margolin Chapter 6. Regulation and Utilization of Cell Division for Bacterial Cell Differentiation Jeniffer Wagner and Yves Brun Chapter 7. FtsZ Folding, Self-association, Activation and Assembly José M. Andreu, María A. Oliva and Sonia Huecas Chapter 8. Sequence and Structural Alignments of Eukaryotic and Prokaryotic Cytoskeletal Proteins Eduardo López-Viñas and Paulino Gómez-Puertas vii

6 viii Chapter 9. Bacterial Morphogenes Jesús Mingorance, Anabel Rico and Paulino Gómez-Puertas Contents 173 Chapter 10. Genome Structures, Operating Systems and the Image of the Machine Antoine Danchin and Stanislas Noria Chapter 11. Gene Order in Prokaryotes: Conservation and Implications Manuel J. Gómez, Ildefonso Cases and Alfonso Valencia Chapter 12. How Similar Cell Division Genes are Located and Behave in Different Bacteria Miguel Vicente, Javier Alvarez and Rocío Martínez-Arteaga Chapter 13. The Bacterial dcw Gene Cluster: an Island in the Genome? Jesús Mingorance and Javier Tamames Index