Catching Some Zs: A New Protein for Spatial Regulation of Bacterial Cytokinesis

Prior to its duplication, the bacterial nucleoid exerts local negative control over assembly of the cytokinetic Z ring to prevent potential cutting of the chromosome. In this issue of Cell, Wu and Errington show that a specific nucleoid-associated protein mediates this nucleoid occlusion effect, providing the first mechanistic insight into this key spatial regulatory system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]