Many antibiotics, which we have taken foregranted since the 1950's, are now becoming ineffective because bacteria have developed ways of acquiring resistance. The development of new antibiotics is lagging behind the loss of the old ones in this race to combat infectious disease. Simultaneously, there is an increase in infectious diseases around the world due to over population, globalization and urbanization. This results in a lethal combination of emerging diseases and loss of effective...

Most bacterial cells have their genes arranged in a single circle of DNA. The circle of DNA plus some attached proteins is referred to as the bacterial chromosome. Up until quite recently, it was thought that the chromosome in the tiny bacteria cell resembled a tangled ball of yarn. It is now known that multiple factors cooperate to condense DNA into a highly dynamic assembly of supercoiled loops. Although there is variability in the lower levels of chromosome structure, the global...