The Biology and Physics of Bacterial Genome Organization

Understanding the compaction and functional organization of genomes of organisms from all three domains of life is a question of longstanding biological interest. Nevertheless, we remain far from a detailed understanding of the mechanisms that structure the genome and the consequences of this structure on cellular function. The chromosome structure problem spans a range of length scales. On the nm-scale, the conformation of the DNA molecule is structured by the action of small chromatin proteins. At an intermediate scale, the genome is folded into loops on the order of 10 kbp in size. On the μm-scale, genomes appear to be divided into independently structured domains. The exact mechanisms underlying these levels of organization are unclear. Some players in these processes have already been revealed, but likely many others have yet to be identified.

The field of bacterial genome organization has been blossoming during the last decade. This is due in particular to the development of a number of new and powerful techniques that have resulted in structural and functional insights at both the molecular and cellular scale. A major challenge in the field is to build an integrated picture of chromosome structure in the context of the living cell based on all these data. This can only be achieved through multi-disciplinary collaborations. This meeting will bring together people with molecular and cellular perspectives from experimental and theoretical backgrounds in order to facilitate productive collaboration.