Directional reversals enable Myxococcus xanthus cells to produce collective one-dimensional streams during fruiting-body formation.

ABSTRACT: The formation of a collectively moving group benefits individuals within a population in a variety of ways. The surface-dwelling bacterium Myxococcus xanthus forms dynamic collective groups both to feed on prey and to aggregate during times of starvation. The latter behaviour, termed fruiting-body formation, involves a complex, coordinated series of density changes that ultimately lead to three-dimensional aggregates comprising hundreds of thousands of cells and spores. How a loose, two-dimensional sheet of motile cells produces a fixed aggregate has remained a mystery as current models of aggregation are either inconsistent with experimental data or ultimately predict unstable structures that do not remain fixed in space. Here, we use high-resolution microscopy and computer vision softwar

SUBMITTER: Thutupalli S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4535398 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature