Fig. 3

Synechocystis expansion and division rapidly pause and restart during light-dark cycles. a For lineages under light-dark cycles starting from single cells, the total volume of all cells in the lineage, normalized to the volume of the initial cell, shows that cells expanded only during light periods. L1, L2, and L3 and D1, D2, and D3 represent illuminated and dark periods, respectively. b Mean growth curves over all lineages and cycles demonstrate that cells started to expand immediately after entry into light periods (left) and rapidly halted expansion after entry into the dark (right). Standard deviation is shown in orange. c Time-lapse images of a cell in the process of constriction before the transition from light to dark. Constriction halted in the dark and continued when illumination resumed after the dark interval. d Number of division events observed during each period of light-dark cycles shows that divisions were not biased toward the beginning or end of light intervals