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. 2013 Nov 12:4:335.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2013.00335. eCollection 2013.

Are Myxobacteria intelligent?

Dale Kaiser  1
Affiliations

Are Myxobacteria intelligent?

Dale Kaiser. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

"Intelligence" is understood in different ways. Because humans are proud of their ability to speak, intelligence often includes the ability to communicate with others, to plan for the future, and to solve frequently encountered problems. Myxobacteria are among the most socially adept and ubiquitous of bacteria that live in the soil. To survive in nature, Myxobacteria communicate with their peers, using signals that elicit specific responses. Both swarming-growth and starvation-induced fruiting body development depend upon the specificity and effectiveness of signals passed between cells. Dynamic swarms spread outward, forming regular multi-cellular and multi-layered structures as they spread. Several different extra-cellular signals have been identified for fruiting body development and one is hypothesized for swarm development. Some extra-cellular signals are small, diffusible molecules. Others are protein molecules. The swarm signal appears to consist of structurally complex, protein to protein, contact junctions between pairs of side by side aligned cells. Each junction persists for less than a minute before disconnecting. After separating, both cells move on to make similar, transient connections with other cells. Eventually, the signal spreads across a prescribed population of communicating cells.

Keywords: bacterial swarm; cell Polarity; gliding motility; multicellular mounds; rafts of cells; reversal of direction; timer for reversals.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Swarm of wild type M. xanthus on a CTT agar plate. The photo was taken after 7 days of incubation at 20°C. The vertical red line at the bottom of the panel marks the 520 μm wide edge of the annulus. We observe annular cells to be growing exponentially at their maximum rate, as each cell continues to move. The swarm is a dynamic collection of interacting cells.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The path followed by the signal postulated to synchronize the pacemakers of the cell pair shown. Arrows point toward the next pair of numbered A-motility proteins to bind together. Adhesion proteins are represented in the figure by numbers that indicate their position in the sequence of pairwise binding steps, unless their location is established, like CglB and FrzCD. 1"2 is the first pair of proteins to bind, 2"3 is the second pair, n"n + 1 is the next to last pair, and n + 1"FrzCD is the last pair. FrzCD is a methylated, regulatory protein, not an A-motility protein. The two cells shown are joined for a short time, just long enough to complete the whole series of binding steps that run from CglB to FrzCD, and through all the membrane bound compartments of the cell. PP, in the diagram, represents the cell’s periplasmic compartment.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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