Microb Biotechnol. 2013 Jan;6(1):3-16

Curtis T, Daran JM, Pronk JT, Frey J, Jansson JK, Robbins-Pianka A, Knight R, Schnürer A, Smets BF, Smid EJ, Abee T, Vicente M, Zengler K.

In this feature, leading researchers in the field of environmental microbiology speculate on the technical and conceptual developments that will drive innovative research and open new vistas over the next few years.

Miguel Vicente asks about whether test tubes will ever undergo division.

Conventional wisdom has produced a description of bacterial division in which a Z-ring, guided by two site selection mechanisms, assembles at midcell and recruits a bunch of other proteins to form a divisome. The divisome, possessing a septal peptidoglycan synthesizing complex and connected to other periplasmic and outer membrane proteins, is thought to produce a septum that ultimately splits the cell in two almost equal halves.

Recent research in the field has largely focused on describing the molecular mechanisms responsible for the functions of the divisome and the interactions between its elements. Publications and discussions at recent meetings on bacterial division stress the need to further investigate the process to obtain a more exact knowledge on these mechanisms. Although it should not be expected that septation will occur in a test tube, after all cell division works on cells, the recent and future attempts to reconstruct the divisome from its parts will likely help to clarify some of these questions (Martos et al., 2012). On the other hand, they may also evidence that some parts may still be missing from the currently accepted picture of the division process.