English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

In their natural environments, microbes are not found in isolation, but live in groups where the ability to communicate and cooperate with friends, while thwarting activities of enemies, is of paramount importance [1,2]. The capacity for interaction among cells in a group allows for social behaviors, which present as emergent properties of the group as a whole that are not predicted from the sum of activities of individual cells. One example includes quorum sensing (QS), which enables cells in a population to coordinate gene expression and limit premature expenditure of resources. Other social behaviors include those occurring in the context of surfaces, such as biofilm formation and various forms of swarming motility across surfaces, as seen in bacteria and slime molds [3–5]. Recognizing cell–cell communication and social behaviors as ubiquitous among bacteria transformed our views of microbiology and microbial pathogenesis [1,2]. Parasitic protozoa cause tremendous human suffering worldwide and, although they engage in cell–cell interactions, the paradigm of social behavior is not commonly applied in studies of these organisms. One long-known social activity in protozoan parasites is QS-driven differentiation of the African trypanosome, Trypanosoma brucei, in the bloodstream of a mammalian host. During infection, proliferating T. brucei cells undergo cell-density dependent differentiation into quiescent forms that are then competent to be transmitted by a tsetse fly vector (Fig 1) [6,7]. More recently, the discovery of social motility (SoMo) in insect-stage T. brucei (Fig 1) [8] has highlighted the capacity of these organisms for group-level behavior, and several recent studies of SoMo emphasize the potential for concepts underlying social behavior to provide insight into parasite biology.

"With a Little Help from My Friends"—Social Motility in Trypanosoma brucei