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Science 5 November 2004:
Vol. 306. no. 5698, pp. 987 - 989
DOI: 10.1126/science.1105535
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Perspectives

MICROBIOLOGY:
Dynamic Instability of a Bacterial Engine

Jakob Møller-Jensen and Kenn Gerdes

During the division of bacteria, not only chromosomal DNA but also plasmids need to be equally segregated between daughter cells. In their Perspective, Møller-Jensen and Gerdes discuss new work (Garner et al.) showing that in rod-shaped bacteria, polymerization of an actin homolog called ParM provides the driving force enabling segregation of plasmids to opposite poles of the bacterium just before beta cell division.

J. Møller-Jensen is in the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge CB2 2QH, UK. K. Gerdes is in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5230 Odense, Denmark. E-mail: kgerdes{at}bmb.sdu.dk

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)