Dynamic localisation of DamX regulates bacterial filamentation and division during UPEC dispersal from host cells

Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) cells can grow into highly filamentous forms during infection of bladder epithelial cells, but this process is poorly understood. Herein we found that some UPEC filaments released from infected bladder cells in vitro grew very rapidly and by more than 100 μm before initiating division, whereas others did not survive, suggesting that filamentation is a stress response that promotes dispersal. The DamX bifunctional division protein, which is essential for UPEC filamentation, was initially non-localized but then assembled at multiple division sites in the filaments prior to division. DamX rings maintained consistent thickness during constriction and remained at the septum until after membrane fusion was completed, like in rod cell division. Our findings suggest a mechanism involving regulated dissipation of DamX, leading to division arrest and filamentation, followed by its reassembly into division rings to promote UPEC dispersal and survival during infection.

On reduced rings with prime factors simple

We obtain a common generalization of the results by Wong and Birkenmeier-Kim-Park, respectively, which say that a reduced ring with unity is strongly (respectively, weakly) regular if and only if all of its prime homomorphic images are division rings (respectively, simple domains). Our arguments are different from those in the known proofs and are quite simple. They also give a characterization of weakly regular reduced rings without unity. This characterization implies in particular that the class of weakly regular reduced rings forms a radical class. However, even if a weakly regular reduced ring has no unity, its prime homomorphic images must be simple domains with unity. In the second part of the paper, we study reduced rings whose prime homomorphic images are simple domains (not necessarily with unity).

The universality of Hughes-free division rings

Let $$E*G$$ E ∗ G be a crossed product of a division ring E and a locally indicable group G. Hughes showed that up to $$E*G$$ E ∗ G -isomorphism, there exists at most one Hughes-free division $$E*G$$ E ∗ G -ring. However, the existence of a Hughes-free division $$E*G$$ E ∗ G -ring $${\mathcal {D}}_{E*G}$$ D E ∗ G for an arbitrary locally indicable group G is still an open question. Nevertheless, $${\mathcal {D}}_{E*G}$$ D E ∗ G exists, for example, if G is amenable or G is bi-orderable. In this paper we study, whether $${\mathcal {D}}_{E*G}$$ D E ∗ G is the universal division ring of fractions in some of these cases. In particular, we show that if G is a residually-(locally indicable and amenable) group, then there exists $${\mathcal {D}}_{E[G]}$$ D E [ G ] and it is universal. In Appendix we give a description of $${\mathcal {D}}_{E[G]}$$ D E [ G ] when G is a RFRS group.

The generating rank of a polar Grassmannian

In this paper we compute the generating rank of k-polar Grassmannians defined over commutative division rings. Among the new results, we compute the generating rank of k-Grassmannians arising from Hermitian forms of Witt index n defined over vector spaces of dimension N > 2n. We also study generating sets for the 2-Grassmannians arising from quadratic forms of Witt index n defined over V(N, 𝔽 q ) for q = 4, 8, 9 and 2n ≤ N ≤ 2n + 2. We prove that for N > 6 and anisotropic defect (polar corank) d ≠ 2 they can be generated over the prime subfield, thus determining their generating rank.