Bacterial cell proliferation is highly efficient, both because bacteria grow fast and multiply with a low failure rate. This efficiency is underpinned by the robustness of the cell cycle and its synchronization with cell growth and cytokinesis. Recent advances in bacterial cell biology brought about by single cell physiology in microfluidic chambers suggest a series of simple phenomenological models at the cellular scale, coupling cell size and growth with the cell cycle. We contrast the apparent simplicity of these mechanisms based on the addition of a constant size between cell cycle events (e.g. two consecutive initiation of DNA replication or cell division) with the complexity of the underlying regulatory networks. Beyond the paradigm of cell cycle checkpoints, the coordination between the DNA and division cycles and cell growth is largely mediated by a wealth of other mechanisms. We propose our perspective on these mechanisms, through the prism of the known crosstalk between DNA replication and segregation, cell division and cell growth or size. We argue that the precise knowledge of these molecular mechanisms is critical to integrate the diverse layers of controls at different time and space scales into synthetic and verifiable models.

中文翻译：

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细菌细胞增殖：从分子到细胞


细菌细胞增殖效率很高，因为细菌生长速度快，繁殖失败率低。这种效率的基础是细胞周期的稳健性及其与细胞生长和胞质分裂的同步性。微流体室中的单细胞生理学带来的细菌细胞生物学的最新进展提出了细胞尺度上的一系列简单的现象学模型，将细胞大小和生长与细胞周期耦合起来。我们将这些基于细胞周期事件（例如DNA复制或细胞分裂的两次连续启动）之间添加恒定大小的机制的明显简单性与基础调控网络的复杂性进行了对比。除了细胞周期检查点的范式之外，DNA 和分裂周期以及细胞生长之间的协调很大程度上是由许多其他机制介导的。我们通过 DNA 复制和分离、细胞分裂和细胞生长或大小之间已知的串扰的棱镜提出了我们对这些机制的看法。我们认为，对这些分子机制的精确了解对于将不同时间和空间尺度的不同控制层整合到合成和可验证的模型中至关重要。