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Structural and Functional Properties of the Escherichia coli Origin of DNA Replication
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1979
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Functional PropertiesMolecular BiologyReplicon ModelProtein FoldingProtein X-ray CrystallographyDna ComputingDna InitiationProkaryotic SystemCell DivisionEscherichia Coli OriginMacromolecular MachineDna ReplicationMolecular MicrobiologyStructural BiologyProtein BiosynthesisBiologyNatural SciencesSynthetic BiologyMicrobiologyMedicine
Although the biochemical basis of DNA replication has been uncovered in the last decade, we still know very little about the general system that integrates cellular controls, the regulation of DNA replication, the formation of bacterial membranes, and the process of cellular division with equipartition of DNA copies. After the replicon model (Jacob et al. 1964), several models were proposed (Sueoka and Quinn 1969; Helmstetter et al. 1969; Lark 1966; Hirota et al. 1974; Pritchard 1969) which often assumed that cellular DNA was organized in units of replication, or replicons, through DNA initiation. Replicons were assumed to be attached in some way to the bacterial membrane at the origin of replication. Separation and equipartition of the DNA copies were hypothesized to occur by membrane growth between membrane attachment sites of these replicas.