Distribution of cell lengths in cultures of a lexA mutant of Escherichia coli K-12.
Distributions of cell lengths in lexA+ and lexA mutant cultures during normal growth and under thymidine starvation conditions are presented. During normal growth lexA mutant cells were slightly shorter, on the average, than were lexA+ cells. lexA mutant cells were also shorter in comparison with lexA+ cells after a period of thymidine starvation. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the lexA gene is involved in the coordination of cell division with DNA repair.
D002455:Cell Division; D004260:DNA Repair; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D005796:Genes; D009154:Mutation