BACKGROUND Recovering individual genomes from metagenomic datasets allows access to uncultivated microbial populations that may have important roles in natural and engineered ecosystems. Understanding the roles of these uncultivated populations has broad application in ecology, evolution, biotechnology and medicine. Accurate binning of assembled metagenomic sequences is an essential step in rec...

The formation of fruiting bodies by myxobacteria colonies involves altruistic suicide by many individual bacteria and is thus vulnerable to exploitation by cheating mutants. We report results of simulations that show how in a structured environment with patchy distribution of cheating mutants the wild type might persist. This work was inspired by experiments on myxobacteria Myxococcus xanthus r...

At the beginning of their aggregation phase waves of cell density sweep across the surface of myxobacteria colonies. These waves are unlike any other in biology. Waves can be linear, concentric or spiral and when they collide, instead of annihilating one another they appear to pass through each other unchanged. Moreover, the wavelength determines the spacing and pattern of fruiting bodies that ...

Myxobacteria are social bacteria that upon starvation form multicellular fruiting bodies whose shape in different species can range from simple mounds to elaborate tree-like structures. The formation of fruiting bodies is a result of collective cell movement on a solid surface. In the course of development, groups of flexible rod-shaped cells form streams and move in circular or spiral patterns...