Myxococcus xanthus Growth, Development, and Isolation

Abstract

Myxobacteria are a highly social group among the delta proteobacteria that display unique multicellular behaviors during their complex life cycle and provide a rare opportunity to study the boundary between single cells and multicellularity. These organisms are also unusual as their entire life cycle is surface associated and includes a number of social behaviors: social gliding and rippling motility, ‘wolf‐pack’‐like predation, and self‐organizing complex biostructures, termed fruiting bodies, which are filled with differentiated environmentally resistant spores. Here we present methods for the growth, maintenance, and storage of Myxococcus xanthus, the most commonly studied of the myxobacteria. We also include methods to examine various developmental and social behaviors (fruiting body and spore formation, predation, and rippling motility). As the myxobacteria, similar to the streptomycetes, are excellent sources of many characterized and uncharacterized antibiotics and other natural products, we have provided a protocol for obtaining natural isolates from a variety of environmental sources. © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

No Endospore Formation Confirmed in Members of the Phylum Proteobacteria

“…Myxococcus have also been linked to nutrient limitation and can serve for preservation of genetic material under unfavourable environmental conditions (7)(8)(9). Despite the apparent similarities between these different types of sporulation, the underlying transformations are morphologically distinct and encoded by non-homologous pathways (10).…”

“…For example, low nitrogen or carbon availability in Firmicutes can stimulate formation of endospores resistant to UV radiation, extreme pH, high temperature, and pressure ( 4 – 6 ). Similarly, exospore formation in Actinobacteria and fruiting-body production in Myxococcus have also been linked to nutrient limitation and can serve for preservation of genetic material under unfavorable environmental conditions ( 7 – 9 ). Despite the apparent similarities between these different types of sporulation, the underlying transformations are morphologically distinct and encoded by nonhomologous pathways ( 10 ).…”

No endospore formation confirmed in members of the phylum Proteobacteria

“…Similarly, exosporulation in Actinobacteria and fruiting body production in Myxococcus have also been linked to nutrient limitation and can serve for preservation of genetic material under unfavourable environmental conditions (7)(8)(9). Despite the apparent similarities between these different types of sporulation, the underlying transformations are morphologically distinct and encoded by non-homologous pathways (10).…”