How Do Bacteria Divide - 1600 Words

How do bacteria divide? Introduction Cytokinesis is the process of producing to progeny cells (Scitable by nature education, 2014); the main process by which bacteria reproduce is asexual producing genetically identical offspring. The most common process of cell division in bacteria is binary fission. In this essay I intend to explain some aspects of DNA replication and septation – including the synthesis of peptidoglycan in the new cell wall – using the model organism Escherichia coli. Also, I will discuss the role and function of Fts proteins in cell division. Finally, I will discuss some less common forms of bacterial cell division, cell division where FtsZ is absent and some key facts from reliable sources on all the topics covered in†¦show more content†¦Replication is completed at the terminus, this is directly opposite the origin. While the two nucleoids occupy the centre of the cell they prevent the binding of FtsZ which I will discuss later. The two origins formed during replication move away from each other to opposite ends of the cell; the rest of the strand following. Currently, microbiologists/scientists do not fully understand how the chromosomes are split between progeny cells as this has not been fully investigated – presently, the evidence suggests there are various mechanism to do this and it varies depending on the bacterial species (Wiley, J.M, Sherwood, L.M. and Woolverton, C.J. 2014). In optimal conditions E.coli has a generation time of 20 minutes, however it takes 40 minutes to replicate its genome alone. E.coli is capable of this generation time because the replication of its circular genome is bidirectional – one replicating on the lagging strand one on the leading strand. In addition to this it has multiple DNA replication forks and a new round of DNA replication is possible to begin before last one has ended Wiley, J.M, Sherwood, L.M. and Woolverton, C.J. 2014). This means that E.coli can make more than two copies of its chromosome a t a time which enables a shorter generation time than the time taken to replicate its genome as there are more chromosomes present to be inherited by progeny cells. With replication and chromosome portioning complete, septation –