Citation | Jeff Errington has made notable contributions to our understanding of cell differentiation and cell division exploiting the sporulating bacterium Bacillus subtilis. He developed a bacteriophage into the only efficient cloning system for this widely-studied organism, and with it cloned nearly all the regulatory genes essential for sporulation. He showed that two novel transcription factors, sigma E and sigma F, determine differential gene expression and hence different cell fates in the two cells generated by the cell division event that precedes sporulation. He pioneered the application of high resolution fluorescence microscopy to the localisation of molecules in tiny bacterial cells and thereby overturned the widely-held view of passive, cell-growth associated chromosome separation in dividing rod-like bacteria. Instead, he showed that an active mitotic-type of mechanism engages a centromere-like sequence near the origin of chromosome replication; and that the completion of DNA partitioning during cell division involves a process resembling DNA transfer during bacterial matings. |