Fat bacteria? Skinny bacteria? From our perspective on high, they all seem to be about the same size. In fact, they are.
Fat bacteria? Skinny bacteria? From our perspective on high, they all seem to be about the same size. In fact, they are.
Precisely why has been an open question, according to Rice University chemist Anatoly Kolomeisky, who now has a theory.
A primal mechanism in bacteria that keeps them in their personal Goldilocks zones — that is, just right — appears to depend on two random means of regulation, growth and division, that cancel each other out. The same mechanism may give researchers a new perspective on disease, including cancer.
The “minimal model” by Kolomeisky, Rice postdoctoral researcher and lead author Hamid Teimouri and Rupsha Mukherjee, a former research assistant at Rice now at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, appears in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
Read more at: Rice University
A simple theoretical model by Rice University scientists seeks to explain why bacteria remain roughly the same size and shape. The model shows the random processes of growth and division are linked, essentially canceling each other out. (Photo Credit: Kolomeisky Research Group/Rice University)
