ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2016
DNA-relay mechanism is sufficient to explain ParA-dependent intracellular transport and patterning of single and multiple cargos.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- The kinetics and mobility of a ParA ATPase drive carboxysome distribution inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Bacillus subtilis ParB C-terminal lysine residues are essential for dimerization and in vivo function, indicating their roles in DNA sliding.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Beyond bactericidal: targeting plasmid-mediated antibiotic resistance with natural product-based plasmid curing agents.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Chromosome segregation dynamics during the cell cycle of Staphylococcus aureus.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Brownian ratchet mechanisms for carboxysome positioning in bacteria.Current opinion in microbiology · 2025Review
- Mutational analysis of the F plasmid partitioning protein ParA reveals residues required for oligomerization and plasmid maintenance.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- Physical models of bacterial chromosomes.Molecular microbiology · 2025Review
- Loop-extruders alter bacterial chromosome topology to direct entropic forces for segregation.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Coordinating plasmid partition with bacterial chromosome segregation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Plasmid partitioning driven by collective migration of ParA between nucleoid lobes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Cell cycle-dependent organization of a bacterial centromere through multi-layered regulation of the ParABS system.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
- Organization and replicon interactions within the highly segmented genome of Borrelia burgdorferi.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
- Kinetic principles of ParA2-ATP cycling guide dynamic subcellular localizations in Vibrio cholerae.Nucleic acids research · 2023Article
- Organization and replicon interactions within the highly segmented genome ofbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- A new role for monomeric ParA/Soj in chromosome dynamics in Bacillus subtilis.MicrobiologyOpen · 2023Article
- Polyploidy, regular patterning of genome copies, and unusual control of DNA partitioning in the Lyme disease spirochete.Nature communications · 2022Article
- High-throughput imaging and quantitative analysis uncovers the nature of plasmid positioning by ParABS.eLife · 2022Article
- Chromosome remodelling by SMC/Condensin inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Chemophoresis engine: A general mechanism of ATPase-driven cargo transport.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Conformation and dynamic interactions of the multipartite genome inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Spatial ordering of macromolecular components inside cells is important for cellular physiology and replication. In bacteria, ParA/B systems are known to generate various intracellular patterns that underlie the transport and partitioning of low-copy-number cargos such as plasmids. ParA/B systems consist of ParA, an ATPase that dimerizes and binds DNA upon ATP binding, and ParB, a protein that binds the cargo and stimulates ParA ATPase activity. Inside cells, ParA is asymmetrically distributed, forming a propagating wave that is followed by the ParB-rich cargo. These correlated dynamics lead to cargo oscillation or equidistant spacing over the nucleoid depending on whether the cargo is in single or multiple copies. Currently, there is no model that explains how these different spatial patterns arise and relate to each other. Here, we test a simple DNA-relay model that has no imposed asymmetry and that only considers the ParA/ParB biochemistry and the known fluctuating and elastic dynamics of chromosomal loci. Stochastic simulations with experimentally derived parameters demonstrate that this model is sufficient to reproduce the signature patterns of ParA/B systems: the propagating ParA gradient correlated with the cargo dynamics, the single-cargo oscillatory motion, and the multicargo equidistant patterning. Stochasticity of ATP hydrolysis breaks the initial symmetry in ParA distribution, resulting in imbalance of elastic force acting on the cargo. Our results may apply beyond ParA/B systems as they reveal how a minimal system of two players, one binding to DNA and the other modulating this binding, can transform directionally random DNA fluctuations into directed motion and intracellular patterning.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.