Global methylation state at base-pair resolution of the Caulobacter genome throughout the cell cycle.

The Caulobacter DNA methyltransferase CcrM is one of five master cell-cycle regulators. CcrM is transiently present near the end of DNA replication when it rapidly methylates the adenine in hemimethylated GANTC sequences. The timing of transcription of two master regulator genes and two cell division genes is controlled by the methylation state of GANTC sites in their promoters. To explore the global extent of this regulatory mechanism, we determined the methylation state of the entire chromosome at every base pair at five time points in the cell cycle using single-molecule, real-time sequencing. The methylation state of 4,515 GANTC sites, preferentially positioned in intergenic regions, changed progressively from full to hemimethylation as the replication forks advanced. However, 27 GANTC sites remained unmethylated throughout the cell cycle, suggesting that these protected sites could participate in epigenetic regulatory functions. An analysis of the time of activation of every cell-cycle regulatory transcription start site, coupled to both the position of a GANTC site in their promoter regions and the time in the cell cycle when the GANTC site transitions from full to hemimethylation, allowed the identification of 59 genes as candidates for epigenetic regulation. In addition, we identified two previously unidentified N(6)-methyladenine motifs and showed that they maintained a constant methylation state throughout the cell cycle. The cognate methyltransferase was identified for one of these motifs as well as for one of two 5-methylcytosine motifs.

"Public on the outside, private on the inside": the organizational hybridization, sense of belonging and identity strategies of the employees of a public unemployment insurance fund in Switzerland

A number of studies show that New Public Management reforms have altered the current identity benchmarks of public officials, particularly by hybridizing values or management practices. However, existing studies have largely glossed over the sense of belonging of officials when their organization straddles the concerns of public service and private enterprise, so that the boundary between public and private sector is blurred. The purpose of this article is precisely to explore this sense of belonging in the context of organizational hybridization. It does so by drawing on the results of research conducted among the employees of a public unemployment insurance fund in Switzerland. On the one hand, the analysis shows how much their markers of belonging are hybrid, multiple and constructed in negative terms (with regard to the State), while indicating that the working practices of the employees point to an identity that is nevertheless closely bound with the public sector. On the other hand, the analysis shows that the organization plays strategically with its State status, by exploiting either its private or public identity in line with the needs related to its external image. The article concludes with a discussion of the results highlighting the strategic functionality of the hybrid identity of the actors.