Entropy-driven spatial organization of highly confined polymers: Lessons for the bacterial chromosome

摘要: Despite recent progress in visualization experiments, the mechanism underlying chromosome segregation bacteria still remains elusive. Here we address a basic physical issue associated with bacterial segregation, namely spatial organization of highly confined, self-avoiding polymers (of nontrivial topology) rod-shaped cell-like geometry. Through computer simulations, present evidence that, under strong confinement conditions, topologically distinct domains polymer complex effectively repel each other to maximize their conformational entropy, suggesting that duplicated circular chromosomes could partition spontaneously. This not only is able account for separation per se but also captures major features spatiotemporal duplicating observed Escherichia coli and Caulobacter crescentus.