Comment on 'Initiation of chromosome replication controls both division and replication cycles in E. coli through a double-adder mechanism'

Abstract

Witz et al. recently performed single-cell mother machine experiments to track growth and the replication cycle in E. coli. They analyzed the correlation structure of selected parameters using both their data and published data, and concluded that E. coli cell-size control is implemented at replication initiation, which challenged the newly emerged division-centric mechanism of cell-size control in bacteria. We repeated Witz et al.s analysis, and performed additional experiments and analytical calculations. These results explain Witz et al.s observation and in fact support the division-centric model.