bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.31.725226; this version posted December 31, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. 1 Single molecule tracking reveals the role of transitory dynamics of nucleoid-associated protein 2 HU in organizing the bacterial chromosome 3 4 Kelsey Bettridge1,3, Subhash Verma2, Xiaoli Weng2, Sankar Adhya2*, and Jie Xiao1* 5 1 Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University School of 6 Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA 7 2 Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, 8 National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA 9 3 Current address: Laboratory of Biochemistry and Genetics, National Institute for Diabetes, 10 Digestive, and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA 11 * Correspondence should be addressed to S. A. (
[email protected]) and J. X. (
[email protected]) 12 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.31.725226; this version posted December 31, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. 13 Abstract 14 HU is the most conserved nucleoid-associated protein in eubacteria and has been implicated as a 15 key player in global chromosome organization. The mechanism of HU-mediated nucleoid 16 organization, however, remains poorly understood. Using single molecule tracking coupled with 17 genetic manipulations, we characterized the dynamics of HU in live Escherichia coli cells.