ReviewNature reviews. Microbiology2014
Bacterial solutions to multicellularity: a tale of biofilms, filaments and fruiting bodies.
Review in Nature reviews. Microbiology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 193 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
193 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Colony politics to chemical warfare: phenotypic plasticity in Streptomyces.Essays in biochemistry · 2026Review
- Physical encounters impose a consistency-amount trade-off on bacterial group formation in marine environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Complex multicellularity is linked with expanded specialized metabolite production in microorganisms.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Biofilms: from the cradle of life to life support.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Review
- Article
- Biophysics of Bacterial Colonial Structures and the Occupancy of Microecological Spaces.Biology · 2025Review
- An agent-based model of metabolic signaling oscillations in Bacillus subtilis biofilms.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- A delivered DNase toxin creates population heterogeneity through transient intoxication of siblings.mBio · 2025Article
- Effective disposal and remediation of chemical agents with designer living biofilm materials in soil and water.Fundamental research · 2025Article
- The novel GlcNAc 6-phosphate dehydratase NagS governs a metabolic checkpoint that controls nutrient signaling in Streptomyces.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Form and function in biological filaments: a physicist's review.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2025Review
- Cell differentiation, aging, and death in spatially organized yeast communities: mechanisms and consequences.Cell death and differentiation · 2025Review
- Predation, evo-devo, and historical contingency: A nematode predator drives evolution of aggregative multicellularity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- DNA-programmed responsive microorganism assembly with controlled patterns and behaviors.Science advances · 2025Article
- The biofilm matrix protectsBiofilm · 2025Article
- Resolving spatiotemporal dynamics in bacterial multicellular populations: approaches and challenges.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2025Review
- Factors that influence the caste ratio in a bacterial division of labour.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Evolution of irreversible differentiation under stage-dependent cell differentiation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Spatial population dynamics of bacterial colonies with social antibiotic resistance.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
133 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Although bacteria frequently live as unicellular organisms, many spend at least part of their lives in complex communities, and some have adopted truly multicellular lifestyles and have abandoned unicellular growth. These transitions to multicellularity have occurred independently several times for various ecological reasons, resulting in a broad range of phenotypes. In this Review, we discuss the strategies that are used by bacteria to form and grow in multicellular structures that have hallmark features of multicellularity, including morphological differentiation, programmed cell death and patterning. In addition, we examine the evolutionary and ecological factors that lead to the wide range of coordinated multicellular behaviours that are observed in bacteria.
Indexed as
Identifiers
24384602What OpenQuestion holds
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.