Detalle de: Bacterial morphogenes

Cell shape is not the product of a particular gene or protein, but the result of the collective actions of many of them. These are involved in several processes, including peptidoglycan precursor synthesis, peptidoglycan synthesis and recycling, cell elongation, cell septation and division site selection. The analysis of the “morphogene” content of several bacterial genomes suggests that there are three different ways to make rod-shaped cells. The fact that most bacilli appear in a single branch of the tree supports previous works that suggest that the ancestor of all extant bacteria was a rod-shaped organism (Siefert and Fox, 1998; Tamames et al., 2001; Koch, 2003; Chapters 1 and 13). This ancestor presumably had a dcw gene cluster (Nikolaichik and Donachie, 2000; Tamames et al., 2001; Chapter 13), a RodA-PBP2 system for cell elongation, an MreB cytoskeleton, and a Min system for selection of the division site.