Cell biological studies of ethanologenic bacterium Zymomonas mobilis

In the present study, we characterized basic cellular behaviour of strain Zm6 at a single cell level. We observed that growing cells often divided at non mid-cell position, which contributed to variant cell size at birth. Yet, the cell size variance was regulated by a modulation of cell cycle span, mediated by a correlation of bacterial tubulin homologue FtsZ-ring accumulation with cell growth. The culture also exhibited heterogeneous cellular DNA contents among individual cells, which might have been caused by asynchronous replication of chromosome that was not coordinated to cell growth. Furthermore, slightly angled divisions might have rendered temporary curvatures of attached cells. Overall, the presented study uncovered a novel bacterial cell organization in , the metabolism of which is not favoured for biosynthesis to build biomass.