Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Cells must coordinate DNA segregation with cytokinesis to ensure that each daughter cell inherits a complete genome. Here, we explore how DNA segregation and division are mechanistically coupled in archaeal relatives of eukaryotes, which lack Cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)/Cyclins. Using live cell imaging, we first describe the series of sequential changes in DNA organization that accompany cell division in Sulfolobus, which computational modeling shows likely aid genome segregation. Through a perturbation analysis we identify a regulatory checkpoint which ensures that the compaction of the genome into two spatially segregated nucleoids only occurs once cells have assembled a division ring—which also defines the axis of DNA segregation. Finally, we show that DNA compaction and segregation depend, in part, on a ParA homologue, SegA, and its partner SegB, whose absence leads to bridging DNA. Taken together, these data show how regulatory checkpoints like those operating in eukaryotes aid high-fidelity division in an archaeon.
Authors: Joe Parham, Valerio Sorichetti, Alice Cezanne, Sherman Foo, Yin-Wei Kuo, Baukje Hoogenberg, Arthur Radoux-Mergault, Eloise Mawdesley, Lydia Daniels Gatward, Jerome Boulanger, Ulrike Schulze, Anđela Šarić, Buzz Baum
Language: English
Subfield: Cell Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funders: Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Simons Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, European Molecular Biology Organization, Vallee Foundation, Wellcome Trust, UK Research and Innovation, Moore Family Foundation, European Commission, Medical Research Council, HORIZON EUROPE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, HORIZON EUROPE European Research Council
Awards: Understanding cellular organisation: from archaea to eukaryotes, G269593528, Archaeal cell-cell interactions and their role in the emergence of eukaryotes, G408736041, G434337789, G4352189273, G4454568253, G4694779415, G4971171532, G597829872, Cell cycle control in archaea, G7441889641, G7671879742, G8466041358, G881427658, G9000015992
OpenAlex ID: W4415222218