Competitive Interactions Between Incompatible Mutants of the Social Bacterium Myxococcus xanthus DK1622.

ABSTRACT: Due to the high similarity in their requirements for space and food, close bacterial relatives may be each other's strongest competitors. Close bacterial relatives often form visible boundaries to separate their swarming colonies, a phenomenon termed colony-merger incompatibility. While bacterial species are known to have many incompatible strains, it is largely unclear which traits lead to multiple incompatibilities and the interactions between multiple incompatible siblings. To investigate the competitive interactions of closely related incompatible strains, we mutated Myxococcus xanthus DK1622, a predatory bacterium with complex social behavior. From 3392 random transposon mutations, we obtained 11 self-identification (SI) deficient mutants that formed unmerged colony boundaries

SUBMITTER: Gong Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5996272 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature