Multicellular life cycle of magnetotactic prokaryotes

Carolina N. Keim, Juliana L. Martins, Fernanda Abreu, Alexandre Soares Rosado, Henrique Lins De Barros, Radovan Borojevic, Ulysses Lins, Marcos Farina

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

85 Scopus citations

Abstract

Most multicellular organisms, prokaryotes as well as animals, plants, and algae have a unicellular stage in their life cycle. Here, we describe an uncultured prokaryotic magnetotactic multicellular organism that reproduces by binary fission. It is multicellular in all the stages of its life cycle, and during most of the life cycle the cells organize into a hollow sphere formed by a functionally coordinated and polarized single-cell layer that grows by increasing the cell size. Subsequently, all the cells divide synchronously; the organism becomes elliptical, and separates into two equal spheres with a torsional movement in the equatorial plane. Unicellular bacteria similar to the cells that compose these organisms have not been found. Molecular biology analysis showed that all the organisms studied belong to a single genetic population phylogenetically related to many-celled magnetotactic prokaryotes in the delta sub-group of the proteobacteria. This appears to be the first report of a multicellular prokaryotic organism that proliferates by dividing into two equal multicellular organisms each similar to the parent one. © 2004 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)203-208
Number of pages6
JournalFEMS Microbiology Letters
Volume240
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 15 2004
Externally publishedYes

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