Condensation of the Forespore Nucleoid Early in Sporulation of Bacillus Species

Overview

Journal J Bacteriol

Publisher American Society for Microbiology

Specialty Microbiology

Date 1991 Oct 1

PMID 1917859

Citations 47

Authors

B Setlow

N Magill

P Febbroriello

L Nakhimovsky

D E Koppel

P Setlow

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Fluorescence microscopic examination coupled with digital videoimage analysis of 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole-stained sporulating cells of Bacillus megaterium or Bacillus subtilis revealed a striking condensation of the forespore nucleoid. While both mother cell and forespore compartments had equal amounts of DNA, the forespore nucleoid became greater than 2-fold more condensed than the mother cell nucleoid. The condensation of the forespore nucleoid began after only the first hour of sporulation, 2 to 3 h before expression of most forespore-specific genes including those for small, acid-soluble spore proteins, and was abolished in spo0 mutants but not in spoII or spoIII mutants. It is possible that this striking condensation of forespore DNA plays some role in modulating gene expression during sporulation.

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