Genome architecture and global gene regulation in bacteria: making progress towards a unified model?

Data obtained with advanced imaging techniques, chromosome conformation capture methods, bioinformatics and molecular genetics, together with insights from polymer physics and mechanobiology, are helping to refine our understanding of the spatiotemporal organization of the bacterial nucleoid and its gene expression programmes. Here, I discuss the proposal that, in addition to DNA topology and nucleoid-associated proteins, gene regulation is an important organizing principle of nucleoid architecture.