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Biosensors Reveal How Single Bacterium Gets the Message to Split Into a Swimming and a Stay-put Cell


June 3, 2010

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When certain bacteria reproduce by splitting in two, one cell inherits a propeller for swimming and the other builds a stalk to cling to surfaces. University of Washington researchers developed biosensors to observe what was going on biochemically. They found that the signaling chemical c-di-GMP was unevenly distributed during cell division, and that the swimming cell got less than the stalk cell.Full Story

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University of Washington

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