The "Sisters Machine"

We have developed an experimental method for measuring proliferation of
heterogeneity in bacterial cell characteristics, based on measuring how two sister cells become different from each other over time (Vashistha el at 2021). These measurements provide the inheritance dynamics of different cellular properties, and the ‘inertia’ of cells (i.e. cellular memory) to maintain these properties along time. Using this new method, we found that inheritance dynamics are property specific and can exhibit long-term memory (~10 generations) that works to restrain variation among cells. We intend to use this technique to reveal mechanisms of non-genetic inheritance and their memory in bacteria in order to better understand how cells control their properties and heterogeneity within isogenic cell populations.