PLASMIDA Journal of Mobile Genetic Elements and Genomics

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Julian I RoodDepartment of Microbiology, Monash University, Clayton, Vic 3800, Australia

EDITOR-REVIEWS

Saleem KhanUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry

Room East 1240 Biomedical Science Tower, 200 Lothrop Street, Pittsburgh, PA-15261

EDITORS

Philipp BergerMolecular Cell Biology

Paul Scherrer Institut

CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland

Richard CalendarDepartment of Molecular and Cell Biology

401 Barker Hall

University of California

Berkeley, California 94720-3202, USA

Manel CampsDepartment of Microbiology and

Environmental Toxicology

University of California Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA

Josep CasadesusDepartamento de Genetica

Universidad de Sevilla

Apartado 1095, Sevilla 41080, Spain

Ananda M. ChakrabartyDepartment of Microbiology and

Immunology

E-704 Medical Sciences Building

835 South Wolcott Avenue

University of Illinois at Chicago

Chicago, Illinois 60612-7344, USA

Ronald ChalmersThe University of Nottingham

School of Biomedical Sciences

Queen's Medical Centre

Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK

Dhruba K. ChattorajLab of Biochemistry, NCI, NIH

Department of Health and Human Services

Bldg 37, Rm 6044, 37 Convent Drive

Bethesda, MD 20892-4255

Fernando de la CruzInstituto de Biomedicina y

Biotecnolog�a de Cantabria

(UC-CSIC-SODERCAN)

39011 Santander, Spain

Manuel EspinosaCentro de Instigaciones Biologicas

Ramiro de Maeztu, 9

Madred E-28040, Spain

Neville FirthSchool of Biological Sciences

The University of Sydney

NSW 2006, Australia

W. Florian FrickeInstitute for Genome Sciences

University of Maryland Baltimore

801 W Baltimore St

Baltimore, MD 21201, USA

Barbara FunnellDepartment of Molecular Genetics

University of Toronto, Toronto

Ontario M5S 1A8, Canada

Saleem A. KhanDepartment of Molecular Genetics

and Biochemistry

University of Pittsburgh

School of Medicine

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, USA

William KlimkeNCBI, NIH

8600 Rockville Pike

Bethesda, MD 20892, USA

Stuart B. LevyDepartment of Molecular Biology and

Microbiology

Tufts University Medical School

136 Harrison Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02111, USA

Georg LippsInstitute of Chemistry and Bioanalytics

FHNW, Gr�ndenstr. 40

Muttenz 4132, Switzerland

Richard P. NovickSkirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine

New York University School of Medicine

540 First Avenue, 2nd Floor

New York, New York 10016, USA

Gregory J. PhillipsDepartment of Veterinary Microbiology

Iowa State University

1802 University Boulevard

Ames, IA 50011, USA

Julian I. RoodDepartment of Microbiology

Monash University

Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia

C. Jeffrey SmithDepartment of Microbiology and

Immunology

East Carolina University

Moye Boulevard

Greenville, North Carolina 27858, USA

David Keith SummersCambridge University

Department of Genetics

Downing Street

Cambridge CB2 3EH, United Kingdom

Eva M. TopDepartment of Biological Sciences

University of Idaho

PO Box 443051

Moscow, Idaho 83844-3051, USA

Grzegorz WegrzynDepartment of Molecular Biology

University of Gdansk

Kladki 24, 80-822 Gdansk

Poland

Cover photo: Mechanism of origin opening by the bacterial initiator DnaA. First, DnaA monomers bind to conserved elements in the

bacterial origin. Second, ATP triggers DnaA self-assembly allowing the initiator to engage and stretch the DNA backbone promoting

origin opening. Further details are in Duderstadt et al. (2011) Nature 478:209.