Cell shape, division and development: the 2002 American Society for Microbiology (ASM) conference on prokaryotic development

In the last decade, the use of cytological techniques, together with the analysis of complete genomes, has dramatically advanced our understanding of bacterial development. Work on several well-developed model systems such as Bacillus subtilis, Caulobacter crescentus, Myxococcus xanthus and Streptomyces spp., has provided us with an in-depth understanding of processes such as sporulation, multicellular behaviour and the bacterial cell cycle. At the same time, these studies have revolutionized our view of the bacterial cell and shown it to be a highly complex entity with spatial and temporal organization. The recent American Society for Microbiology (ASM) conference on prokaryotic development demonstrated that several laboratories have now started to connect data obtained through functional genomic analysis with subcellular organization, thereby generating three-dimensional regulatory networks. This meeting report highlights new findings in the field, such as regulation of protein localization during sporulation and the cell cycle, control of cell-cell interaction and the initiation of cell division.