Future Directions of the Prokaryotic Chromosome Field

In September 2023, the Biology and Physics of Prokaryotic Chromosomes meeting ran at the Lorentz Center in Leiden, The Netherlands. As part of the workshop, those in attendance developed a series of discussion points centered around current challenges for the field, how these might be addressed, and how the field is likely to develop over the next 10 years. The Lorentz Center staff facilitated these discussions via tools aimed at optimizing productive interactions. This Perspective article is a summary of these discussions and reflects the state-of-the-art of the field. It is expected to be of help to colleagues in advancing their own research related to prokaryotic chromosomes and inspiring novel interdisciplinary collaborations. This forward-looking perspective highlights the open questions driving current research and builds on the impressive recent progress in these areas as represented by the accompanying reviews, perspectives, and research articles in this issue. These articles underline the multi-disciplinary nature of the field, the multiple length scales at which chromatin is studied in vitro and in and highlight the differences and similarities of bacterial and archaeal chromatin and chromatin-associated processes.