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Review
. 2015 Apr 24:6:363.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2015.00363. eCollection 2015.

Perturbed states of the bacterial chromosome: a thymineless death case study

Lev Ostrer  1 , Bree L Hamann  1 , Arkady Khodursky  1
Affiliations
Review

Perturbed states of the bacterial chromosome: a thymineless death case study

Lev Ostrer et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Spatial patterns of transcriptional activity in the living genome of Escherichia coli represent one of the more peculiar aspects of the E. coli chromosome biology. Spatial transcriptional correlations can be observed throughout the chromosome, and their formation depends on the state of replication in the cell. The condition of thymine starvation leading to thymineless death (TLD) is at the "cross-roads" of replication and transcription. According to a current view, e.g., (Cagliero et al., 2014), one of the cellular objectives is to segregate the processes of transcription and replication in time and space. An ultimate segregation would take place when one process is inhibited and another is not, as it happens during thymine starvation, which results in numerous molecular and physiological abnormalities associated with TLD. One of such abnormalities is the loss of spatial correlations in the vicinity of the origin of replication. We review the transcriptional consequences of replication inhibition by thymine starvation in a context of the state of DNA template in the starved cells and opine about a possible significance of normal physiological coupling between the processes of replication and transcription.

Keywords: replication; spatial correlations; thymine starvation; thymineless death; transcription.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Spatial correlations in transcript abundances along the E. coli chromosome. Significant wavelets with corresponding main frequencies are shown for a genome-wide transcriptional signal recorded prior to thymine starvation (A) and 30 min into starvation (B). The figure was obtained using publicly available data as previously described (Jeong et al., 2004).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
(A) DNA dosage profiles in chromosomes of cells synchronized for replication initiation by using a temperature sensitive replication initiation mutant (Hamann, 2013). (B) A model of DNA loss in thymine starved cells synchronized for initiation of DNA replication.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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