Cell cycle-associated expression patterns predict gene function in mycobacteria

Gene expression is evaluated over roughly 1.5 cell cycles in a temperature-sensitive dnaA mutant of M. tuberculosis H37Rv to identify genes with periodic expression, or clusters of genes whose expression peaks at different timepoints correlating with distinct cell-cycle events like chromosome replication, septum formation, divisome assembly, and cytokinesis. Overall design: RNAseq at 16 timepoints spanning 55 hours in 2 replicates each of dnaA cold-sensitive mutant and H37Rv wildtype strains