Speed variations of bacterial replisomes

Replisomes are large protein complexes that replicate DNA with astounding accuracy and speed. I will present a theory that predicts the abundance of DNA fragments in an exponentially growing bacterial population from the dynamics of replisome. We apply this theory to infer the replisome dynamics in E.coli from measured patterns of DNA abundance. Our study reveals the temperature dependence of the replisome speed, and shows that the replisome speed presents wave-like variations along the E.coli genome. I will discuss possible causes and consequences of this phenomenon.