Watch out magnetotactic bacteria are splitting

Ever wondered how nanomagnets are shared when a magnetotactic bacteria is splitting into two? The mystery was resolved for good by Katzmann et al. (Dirk Schüler group at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) with a slick in situ electron microscopy monitoring experiment (see the figure). Authors argue that the bacteria bends to tune down the magnetostatic interactions but not destroy the alignment entirely as the newly formed daughters will need that after the split. The type of the bacteria is Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense.