Keeping replication on par with division in Bacillus

Abstract

Spatially, division site selection is one of the most precisely controlled processes in bacterial physiology. Despite its obvious importance to the production of properly sized, viable daughter cells, the mechanisms underlying division site selection have remained largely mysterious. Molecular Microbiology, Hajduk et al. provide new insight into this essential process. Overturning previous models, including one of their own, they discover that two factors involved in chromosome remodeling – the ParB-like protein Spo0J, and the nucleoid-associated protein Noc – work together to coordinate early steps in DNA replication with establishment of a medial division site in the Gram-positive bacterium, Bacillus subtilis.