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Journal of Bacteriology, September 1999, p. 5860-5864, Vol. 181, No. 18
0021-9193/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Synthetic Lethal Phenotypes Caused by Mutations Affecting Chromosome Partitioning in Bacillus subtilis

Robert A. Britton and Alan D. Grossman*

Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Received 19 May 1999/Accepted 9 July 1999

We investigated the genetic interactions between mutations affecting chromosome structure and partitioning in Bacillus subtilis. Loss-of-function mutations in spoIIIE (encoding a putative DNA translocase) and smc (involved in chromosome structure and partitioning) caused a synthetic lethal phenotype. We constructed a conditional mutation in smc and found that many of the spoIIIE smc double-mutant cells had a chromosome bisected by a division septum. The growth defect of the double mutant was exacerbated by a null mutation in the chromosome partitioning gene spo0J. These results suggest that mutants defective in nucleoid structure are unable to move chromosomes out of the way of the invaginating septum and that SpoIIIE is involved in repositioning these bisected chromosomes during vegetative growth.


* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biology, Building 68-530, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139. Phone: (617) 253-1515. Fax: (617) 253-2643. E-mail: adg{at}mit.edu.


Journal of Bacteriology, September 1999, p. 5860-5864, Vol. 181, No. 18
0021-9193/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.



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