Livingstone Paul G, Morphew Russell M, Whitworth David E
Institute of Biological Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth UniversityAberystwyth, United Kingdom.
Front Microbiol. 2017 Aug 22;8:1593. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.01593. eCollection 2017.
Myxobacteria are natural predators of microorganisms and the subjects of concerted efforts to identify novel antimicrobial compounds. Myxobacterial predatory activity seems to require more than just the possession of specific antimicrobial metabolites. Thus a holistic approach to studying predation promises novel insights into antimicrobial action. Here, we report the isolation of 113 myxobacteria from samples of soil taken from a range of habitats in mid Wales. Predatory activity of each isolate was quantified against a panel of clinically important prey organisms, including , and three species of . Myxobacterial isolates exhibited a wide range of predation activity profiles against the panel of prey. Efficient predation of all prey by isolates within the collection was observed, with and proving particularly susceptible to myxobacterial predation. Notably efficient predators tended to be proficient at predating multiple prey organisms, suggesting they possess gene(s) encoding a broad range killing activity. However, predatory activity was not congruent with phylogeny, suggesting prey range is subject to relatively rapid specialization, potentially involving lateral gene transfer. The broad but patchy prey ranges observed for natural myxobacterial isolates also implies multiple (potentially overlapping) genetic determinants are responsible for dictating predatory activity.
黏细菌是微生物的天然捕食者，也是鉴定新型抗菌化合物的协同研究对象。黏细菌的捕食活动似乎不仅仅需要拥有特定的抗菌代谢物。因此，采用整体方法研究捕食作用有望为抗菌作用带来新的见解。在此，我们报告了从威尔士中部一系列栖息地采集的土壤样本中分离出113株黏细菌。针对一组具有临床重要性的猎物生物，包括 ，以及三种 ，对每株分离株的捕食活性进行了量化。黏细菌分离株对这组猎物表现出广泛的捕食活性谱。观察到该集合中的分离株对所有猎物都有高效的捕食作用，其中 和 对黏细菌捕食尤为敏感。值得注意的是，高效的捕食者往往擅长捕食多种猎物生物，这表明它们拥有编码广泛杀伤活性的基因。然而，捕食活性与系统发育并不一致，这表明猎物范围可能经历相对快速的特化，可能涉及横向基因转移。天然黏细菌分离株观察到的广泛但不连续的猎物范围也意味着多个（可能重叠）遗传决定因素负责决定捕食活性。
