Genetic requirements for cell division in a genomically minimal cell
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Genomically minimal cells, such as JCVI-syn3.0, offer a platform to clarify genes underlying core physiological processes. While this minimal cell includes genes essential for population growth, the physiology of its single cells remained uncharacterized. To investigate striking morphological variation in JCVI-syn3.0 cells, we present an approach to characterize cell propagation and determine genes affecting cell morphology. Microfluidic chemostats allowed observation of intrinsic cell dynamics resulting in irregular morphologies. The addition of 19 genes not retained in JCVI-syn3.0 generated JCVI-syn3A, which presents significantly less morphological variation than JCVI-syn3.0. We further identified seven of these 19 genes, including two known cell division genes ftsZ and sepF and five genes of unknown function, required together to restore cell morphology and division similar to JCVI-syn1.0. This surprising result emphasizes the polygenic nature of cell morphology, as well as the importance of a Z-ring and membrane properties in the physiology of genomically minimal cells.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".