Surfing on protein waves: proteophoresis as a mechanism for bacterial genome partitioning

Abstract

Efficient bacterial chromosome segregation typically requires the coordinated action of a three-components, fueled by adenosine triphosphate machinery called the partition complex. We present a phenomenological model accounting for the dynamic activity of this system. The model is obtained by coupling simple linear reaction-diffusion equations with a proteophoresis, or "volumetric" chemophoresis, force field. This minimal description, in the sense of Occam's Razor principle, captures most known experimental observations: dynamic oscillations of complex components, complex separation and subsequent symmetrical positioning. The predictions of our model are in phenomenological agreement with and provide substantial insights into recent experiments. From a non-linear physics view point, this system explores the active separation of matter at micrometric scales with a dynamical instability between static positioning and travelling wave regimes.

6 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Emergent behavior in active colloids
• The PomXYZ Proteins Self-Organize on the Bacterial Nucleoid to Stimulate Cell Division

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