Thiery Susanne, Kaimer Christine
Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Front Microbiol. 2020 Jan 14;11:2. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.00002. eCollection 2020.
Myxobacteria are ubiquitous in soil environments. They display a complex life cycle: vegetatively growing cells coordinate their motility to form multicellular swarms, which upon starvation aggregate into large fruiting bodies where cells differentiate into spores. In addition to growing as saprophytes, Myxobacteria are predators that actively kill bacteria of other species to consume their biomass. In this review, we summarize research on the predation behavior of the model myxobacterium which can access nutrients from a broad spectrum of microorganisms. displays an epibiotic predation strategy, i.e., it induces prey lysis from the outside and feeds on the released biomass. This predatory behavior encompasses various processes: Gliding motility and induced cell reversals allow to encounter prey and to remain within the area to sweep up its biomass, which causes the characteristic "rippling" of preying populations. Antibiotics and secreted bacteriolytic enzymes appear to be important predation factors, which are possibly targeted to prey cells with the aid of outer membrane vesicles. However, certain bacteria protect themselves from predation by forming mechanical barriers, such as biofilms and mucoid colonies, or by secreting antibiotics. Further understanding the molecular mechanisms that mediate myxobacterial predation will offer fascinating insight into the reciprocal relationships of bacteria in complex communities, and might spur application-oriented research on the development of novel antibacterial strategies.
黏细菌在土壤环境中普遍存在。它们具有复杂的生命周期：营养生长的细胞协调其运动性以形成多细胞群体，饥饿时这些群体聚集形成大型子实体，细胞在其中分化为孢子。除了作为腐生菌生长外，黏细菌还是捕食者，它们会主动杀死其他物种的细菌以消耗其生物量。在本综述中，我们总结了关于模式黏细菌捕食行为的研究，该模式黏细菌可以从广泛的微生物中获取营养。它展示了一种体表寄生的捕食策略，即从外部诱导猎物裂解并以释放的生物量为食。这种捕食行为包括各种过程：滑行运动和诱导细胞反转使它能够遇到猎物并留在该区域以清扫其生物量，这导致捕食群体出现特征性的“波动”。抗生素和分泌的溶菌酶似乎是重要的捕食因子，它们可能借助外膜囊泡靶向猎物细胞。然而，某些细菌通过形成机械屏障（如生物膜和黏液菌落）或分泌抗生素来保护自己免受捕食。进一步了解介导黏细菌捕食的分子机制将为复杂群落中细菌的相互关系提供迷人的见解，并可能推动新型抗菌策略开发的应用导向研究。
