How bacteria catalyze membrane fission during growth and differentiation is an outstanding question in prokaryotic cell biology. Here, we describe a protein (FisB, for fission protein B) that mediates membrane fission during the morphological process of spore formation in Bacillus subtilis. Sporulating cells divide asymmetrically, generating a large mother cell and smaller forespore. After divi...

Mitochondria display a variety of shapes, ranging from small and spherical or the classical tubular shape to extended networks. Shape transitions occur frequently and include fusion, fission, and branching. It was reported that some mitochondrial shape transitions are developmentally regulated, whereas others were linked to disease or apoptosis. However, if and how mitochondrial function contro...

Mitochondria produce the majority of cellular ATP through oxidative phosphorylation, and their capacity to do so is influenced by many factors. Mitochondrial morphology is recently suggested as an important contributor in controlling mitochondrial bioenergetics. Mitochondria divide and fuse continuously, which is affected by environmental factors, including metabolic alterations. Underscoring i...

Abstract One reading of the Doctrine Original Sin has it that we are guilty a sin committed by Adam, thousands years ago. Fission theorists account for this saying Adam fissioned after he sinned and each us is one his ‘fission successors’. This paper recaps current discussion in literature about theory, arguing proposed version does not work reasons already raised Rea Hudson. I then introduce n...

It is a common procedure to describe the fission-fragment mass distributions of fissioning systems in the actinide region by a sum of at least 5 Gaussian curves, one for the symmetric component and a few additional ones, together with their complementary parts, for the asymmetric components. These components have been attributed to the influence of fragment shells, e.g. in the statistical sciss...

Recent years have placed fission yeast at the forefront of telomere research, as this organism combines a high level of conservation with human telomeres and precise genetic manipulability. Here we highlight some of the latest knowledge of fission yeast telomere maintenance and dysfunction, and illustrate how principles arising from fission yeast research are raising novel questions about telom...

During membrane fission, the GTPase dynamin forms helical assemblies at the neck of membrane buds. Although it has been proposed that fission results from the constriction of the dynamin helix, new work by Bashkirov et al. (2008) and Pucadyil and Schmid (2008) unexpectedly shows that helix disassembly is also necessary for membrane fission.