Spatial and temporal distribution of ribosomes in single cells reveals aging differences between old and new daughters of Escherichia coli

Lineages of rod-shaped bacteria such as Escherichia coli exhibit a temporal decline in elongation rate in a manner comparable to cellular or biological aging.  The effect results from the production of asymmetrical daughters, one with a lower elongation rate, by the division of a mother cell.  The slower daughter compared to the faster daughter, denoted respectively as the old and new daughters, has more aggregates of damaged proteins and fewer expressed gene products.  We have examined further the degree of asymmetry by measuring the density of ribosomes between old and new daughters and between their poles.  We found that ribosomes were denser in the new daughter and also in the new pole of the daughters.  These ribosome patterns match the ones we previously found for expressed gene products.  This outcome suggests that the asymmetry is not likely to result from properties unique to the gene expressed in our previous study, but rather from a more fundamental upstream process affecting..., , , # Spatial and temporal distribution of ribosomes in single cells reveals aging differences between old and new daughters of Escherichia coli

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.59zw3r2jg](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.59zw3r2jg)

## Description of the data and file structure

Data provided report values of elongation rates and ribosome densities of old and new daughters of single cell E. coli mothers.  The elongation rates were obtained by measuring the length of growing cells from microscopy images of single cells.  The difference between the length of a cell over time estimated the growth rate.  The ribosome densities were obtained by attaching to the ribosomes a fluorescent protein reporter and recording the emitted fluorescence by microscopy images of single cells.  Both the measurements of ribosome density and elongation rates were quantified from the microscopy images with the aid of the image processing package ImageJ from the National Institutes of Health.

### Files and variables

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