Open AccessMyxococcus cells respond to elastic forces in their substrate
Author(s) -
Marta Fontes,
Dale Kaiser
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.96.14.8052
Subject(s) - myxococcus xanthus , motility , swarming (honey bee) , mutant , biology , strain (injury) , phenotype , agar plate , swarming motility , microbiology and biotechnology , biophysics , virulence , genetics , bacteria , gene , anatomy , quorum sensing
Elasticotaxis describes the ability ofMyxococcus xanthus cells to sense and to respond to elastic forces within an agar gel on which they rest. Within 5 min of the application of stress, each cell begins to reorient its long axis perpendicular to the stress force. The cells then glide in that direction, and the swarm becomes asymmetric. A quantifiable assay for the strength of elasticotaxis is based on the change in swarm shape from circular to elliptic. By using a collection of isogenic motility mutants, it has been found that the ability to respond to stress in agar depends totally on adventurous (A) motility, but not at all on social (S) motility or on thefrz genes. In fact, S− mutants (which are moving only by means of A motility) respond to the applied stress more strongly than does the wild type, despite the fact that their spreading rates are slower than that of the wt strain. Based on the swarming and elasticotactic phenotypes of isogenicfrizzy strains that were also defective either in A or S motility,frz behaves as if part of the S motility system.