How bacteria arrange their organelles

How cells know the size of their organelles.

Cells have developed ways to sense and control the size of their organelles. Size-sensing mechanisms range from direct measurements provided by dedicated reporters to indirect functional readouts, and they are used to modify organelle size under both normal and stress conditions. Organelle size can also be controlled in the absence of an identifiable size sensor. Studies on flagella have dissec...

Mother puts organelles in their place

L ike a strict parent, the mother centriole keeps order in the cell by telling other organelles where to sit, according to new work by Marshall's team is interested in what controls the intracellular geometry of organelle positioning. To address this topic, they focus on one organelle that is well-known for its specifi c positioning: the centriole. The tethered pair of mother and daughter centr...

Dynamic nature of cells and their organelles

Magentotactic bacteria and their applications

Magentotactic bacteria are the types of bacteria capable of orientation in an external magnetic field because of the ability to produce structures called magnetosomes. Magnetosomes, nanometer-scale structures, are present in most of the magnetotactice bacteria. They are intracellular organelles composed of magnetic iron mineral crystals individually surrounded by a phospholipid layer. Because o...

An Intracellular Nanotrap Redirects Proteins and Organelles in Live Bacteria

UNLABELLED Owing to their small size and enhanced stability, nanobodies derived from camelids have previously been used for the construction of intracellular "nanotraps," which enable redirection and manipulation of green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged targets within living plant and animal cells. By taking advantage of intracellular compartmentalization in the magnetic bacterium Magnetospiri...