Nanoscale visualization and characterization of
            <i>Myxococcus xanthus</i>
            cells with atomic force microscopy

Pelling, Andrew E.; Li, Yinuo; Shi, Wenyuan; Gimzewski, James K.

doi:10.1073/pnas.0501207102

Cited by 110 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Unfortunately, except for M. xanthus and Flavobacterium/Cytophaga, most gliding organisms are currently genetically intractable, limiting research with these organisms to microscopy. These studies showed helical ribbons at the surface of several gliding bacterial species, including M. xanthus, and, as already discussed, slime secretion (74,97). The role of these structures in motility remains to be established.…”

Section: Gliding Motility In Other Bacterial Systemsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Gliding Motility Revisited: How Do the Myxobacteria Move without Flagella?

Mauriello

Mignot

Yang

et al. 2010

Microbiol Mol Biol Rev

122

141

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SUMMARY In bacteria, motility is important for a wide variety of biological functions such as virulence, fruiting body formation, and biofilm formation. While most bacteria move by using specialized appendages, usually external or periplasmic flagella, some bacteria use other mechanisms for their movements that are less well characterized. These mechanisms do not always exhibit obvious motility structures. Myxococcus xanthus is a motile bacterium that does not produce flagella but glides slowly over solid surfaces. How M. xanthus moves has remained a puzzle that has challenged microbiologists for over 50 years. Fortunately, recent advances in the analysis of motility mutants, bioinformatics, and protein localization have revealed likely mechanisms for the two M. xanthus motility systems. These results are summarized in this review.

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Section: Gliding Motility In Other Bacterial Systemsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Gliding Motility Revisited: How Do the Myxobacteria Move without Flagella?

Mauriello

Mignot

Yang

et al. 2010

Microbiol Mol Biol Rev

122

141

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Mechanical properties of macromolecules at the microbial surface are commonly probed by studying the tip-cell interactions observed in force spectroscopy experiments (van der Aa et al, 2001). Tip-cell-surface transient and local interactions serve as a reasonable model for probing adhesive properties at the surface of microbial cells (Pelling et al, 2005;van der Aa et al, 2001;Zhu et al, 2006). This Table 1.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…WT, wild-type; n5300. technique has commonly been applied to measure forces associated with DNA, polysaccharides and proteins (Pelling et al, 2005;Rief et al, 1997;van der Aa et al, 2001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in vivo techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) (Binnig et al, 1986) provide a novel, nondestructive method for providing insight into critical properties associated with bacterial cells and their related surface proteins. AFM has proved to be a powerful tool not only for imaging of the ultrastructure of bacterial surfaces under in situ conditions, but also for determining the associated mechanical properties and intermolecular forces (Pelling et al, 2005;Rief et al, 1997). Schär-Zammaretti & Ubbink (2003a, b) probed the surface properties of different Lactobacillus strains using AFM to quantify tip-cell-surface adhesion forces and related this study to the ability of the lactobacilli to adhere to surfaces, clustering, auto-and coaggregation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanomechanical properties of glucans and associated cell-surface adhesion of Streptococcus mutans probed by atomic force microscopy under in situ conditions

et al. 2007

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This study used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to probe the local cell-surface interactions associated with the glucan polymers of Streptococcus mutans, the macromolecules most commonly attributed to the virulence of this microbe. In situ force spectroscopy was used to quantitatively probe and correlate cell-surface adhesion and dynamics with S. mutans UA140 wild-type and five glucosyltransferase mutants. Adhesion between the tooth surface and S. mutans is largely mediated by glucan production from sucrose via three glucosyltransferases (Gtfs; GtfB, GtfC and GtfD). To monitor the contribution of these particular Gtfs, isogenic mutants of S. mutans were constructed by specific gene inactivation and compared to the wild-type under sucrose and non-sucrose conditions. We report direct measurement of the mechanical properties associated with glucan macromolecules demonstrating that the local adhesion strength increases in a time-dependent process, with a decrease in the average number of rupture events. This finding suggests that S. mutans attaches mainly through glucans to surfaces in the presence of sucrose. In addition, a possible role of the Gtf proteins in sucrose-independent attachment is supported by the decreased adhesion properties of the GtfBCD mutant compared to the wild-type.

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“…4). On occasion, a twisted morphology has been reported in a WT population (30). When viewed by time-lapse microscopy, these twisted cells exhibited severe motility defects (Movies S1 and S2).…”

Section: Ome Rescues the Motility And Development Of O-antigen Mutantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cell rejuvenation and social behaviors promoted by LPS exchange in myxobacteria

Vassallo

Pathak

Cao

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Bacterial cells in their native environments must cope with factors that compromise the integrity of the cell. The mechanisms of coping with damage in a social or multicellular context are poorly understood. Here we investigated how a model social bacterium, Myxococcus xanthus, approaches this problem. We focused on the social behavior of outer membrane exchange (OME), in which cells transiently fuse and exchange their outer membrane (OM) contents. This behavior requires TraA, a homophilic cell surface receptor that identifies kin based on similarities in a polymorphic region, and the TraB cohort protein. As observed by electron microscopy, TraAB overexpression catalyzed a prefusion OM junction between cells. We then showed that damage sustained by the OM of one population was repaired by OME with a healthy population. Specifically, LPS mutants that were defective in motility and sporulation were rescued by OME with healthy donors. In addition, a mutant with a conditional lethal mutation in lpxC, an essential gene required for lipid A biosynthesis, was rescued by Tradependent interactions with a healthy population. Furthermore, lpxC cells with damaged OMs, which were more susceptible to antibiotics, had resistance conferred to them by OME with healthy donors. We also show that OME has beneficial fitness consequences to all cells. Here, in merged populations of damaged and healthy cells, OME catalyzed a dilution of OM damage, increasing developmental sporulation outcomes of the combined population by allowing it to reach a threshold density. We propose that OME is a mechanism that myxobacteria use to overcome cell damage and to transition to a multicellular organism.Myxococcus xanthus | outer membrane | lipopolysaccharide | lpxC | fusion A fundamental question in biology is how cells cope with damage. Microbes occupy diverse habitats fraught with physical, biological, and chemical insults (1, 2). UV radiation, desiccation, predation, extracellular enzymes, antimicrobial compounds, pH, temperature, and osmolarity changes are all stresses to the individual cell. In addition, when cells are in nutrient-poor environments, cell division can be rare, taking days to months to complete (3). In a slow-growing state, cell-surface components that may not be undergoing active repair can accumulate damage through natural aging processes such as oxidation (4, 5) and protein denaturation. Although internal cell stress response pathways are known (6), mechanisms to cope with cell surface damage are less well understood.Although cell damage threatens the fitness of the individual, social organisms have strength in numbers. The strategy of kin selection allows evolutionarily viable cooperation between individuals in a closely related population (7). Communication between individuals and sharing of resources establishes the potential for assistance between individual population members. Social support can be beneficial when the fitness of individuals in a group depends on collaborative behaviors such as prey hunting or the developm...

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Nanoscale visualization and characterization of Myxococcus xanthus cells with atomic force microscopy

Cited by 110 publications

References 58 publications

Gliding Motility Revisited: How Do the Myxobacteria Move without Flagella?

Gliding Motility Revisited: How Do the Myxobacteria Move without Flagella?

Nanomechanical properties of glucans and associated cell-surface adhesion of Streptococcus mutans probed by atomic force microscopy under in situ conditions

Cell rejuvenation and social behaviors promoted by LPS exchange in myxobacteria

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