Bacterial chromosome organization by ParB proteins

Abstract

This thesis explores the mechanisms that underlie chromosome organization in bacteria. Bacteria are considered amongst the simplest living organisms on our planet. They lack the cellular organization found in other domains of life (Archaea or Eukaryotics) and often have simpler life cycles. Over the past decade, we gained increasing knowledge pointing to the fact that bacteria allocate a lot of resources to precisely organize their genome within the cell, and to segregate two genomes after DNA replication to daughter cells.

In this thesis, I investigated DNA organization and segregation systems in a model system bacterium Bacillus subtilis. I approached this feat both from the in vivo aspect – imaging in a live bacterium, and from the in vitro aspect – observing isolated proteins and DNA molecules. This holistic approach allowed me to gain deep insight into the proteins and mechanisms needed for DNA organization and segregation....