ArticlePLoS genetics2013
Molecular recognition by a polymorphic cell surface receptor governs cooperative behaviors in bacteria.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 60 papers.
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Who cites it
60 citing papers in PubMed, 87 citations in OpenAlex.
- Engineered kin recognition specificities in the TraA cell surface receptor.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Aggregative chimeric multicellularity in the absence of lethal kin discrimination.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Hypermutable hotspot enables the rapid evolution of self/non-self recognition genes inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Myxosortase: an intramembrane protease that sorts MYXO-CTERM proteins to the cell surface.mBio · 2025Article
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- Escherichia coli has an undiscovered ability to inhibit the growth of both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The role of recognition error in the stability of green-beard genes.Evolution letters · 2023Article
- Human sperm cooperate to transit highly viscous regions on the competitive pathway to fertilization.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Review
- Article
- The Conserved Serine Transporter SdaC Moonlights To Enable Self Recognition.Journal of bacteriology · 2022Article
- Article
- New binding specificities evolve via point mutation in an invertebrate allorecognition gene.iScience · 2021Article
- Cryptic surface-associated multicellularity emerges through cell adhesion and its regulation.PLoS biology · 2021Article
- Rapid diversification of wild social groups driven by toxin-immunity loci on mobile genetic elements.The ISME journal · 2020Article
- Polymorphic Toxins and Their Immunity Proteins: Diversity, Evolution, and Mechanisms of Delivery.Annual review of microbiology · 2020Review
- Antagonistic interactions subdue inter-species green-beard cooperation in bacteria.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2020Article
- Kin recognition and outer membrane exchange (OME) in myxobacteria.Current opinion in microbiology · 2020Review
- The Fluidity of the Bacterial Outer Membrane Is Species Specific: Bacterial Lifestyles and the Emergence of a Fluid Outer Membrane.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2020Article
- MYXO-CTERM sorting tag directs proteins to the cell surface via the type II secretion system.Molecular microbiology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Cell-cell recognition is a fundamental process that allows cells to coordinate multicellular behaviors. Some microbes, such as myxobacteria, build multicellular fruiting bodies from free-living cells. However, how bacterial cells recognize each other by contact is poorly understood. Here we show that myxobacteria engage in recognition through interactions between TraA cell surface receptors, which leads to the fusion and exchange of outer membrane (OM) components. OM exchange is shown to be selective among 17 environmental isolates, as exchange partners parsed into five major recognition groups. TraA is the determinant of molecular specificity because: (i) exchange partners correlated with sequence conservation within its polymorphic PA14-like domain and (ii) traA allele replacements predictably changed partner specificity. Swapping traA alleles also reprogrammed social interactions among strains, including the regulation of motility and conferred immunity from inter-strain killing. We suggest that TraA helps guide the transition of single cells into a coherent bacterial community, by a proposed mechanism that is analogous to mitochondrial fusion and fission cycling that mixes contents to establish a homogenous population. In evolutionary terms, traA functions as a rare greenbeard gene that recognizes others that bear the same allele to confer beneficial treatment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.