ArticleNature communications2019
Direct visualization of a molecular handshake that governs kin recognition and tissue formation in myxobacteria.
Article in Nature communications, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Predator avoidance promotes inter-bacterial symbiosis with myxobacteria in polymicrobial communities.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Aggregative chimeric multicellularity in the absence of lethal kin discrimination.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Engineered kin recognition specificities in the TraA cell surface receptor.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Predator avoidance promotes interbacterial symbiosis with myxobacteria in polymicrobial communities.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Functional Cargo in Membrane Vesicles From a Citrus Pathogen.Environmental microbiology reports · 2025Article
- Milestones in the development ofJournal of bacteriology · 2025Review
- Tissue-like structures formed by a bacterium.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Changes in epistatic green-beard alleles induce domain shift in hypostatic rock-paper-scissors-like green-beard competition.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2025Article
- Myxosortase: an intramembrane protease that sorts MYXO-CTERM proteins to the cell surface.mBio · 2025Article
- The Predatory Properties of Bradymonabacteria, the Representative of Facultative Prey-Dependent Predators.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- Cell-cell transfer of adaptation traits benefits kin and actor in a cooperative microbe.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Two reasons to kill: predation and kin discrimination in myxobacteria.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2023Review
- Coenzyme BEnvironmental microbiology · 2022Article
- Plasmalogens and Photooxidative Stress Signaling in Myxobacteria, and How it Unmasked CarF/TMEM189 as the Δ1'-Desaturase PEDS1 for Human Plasmalogen Biosynthesis.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Review
- Article
- Cryptic surface-associated multicellularity emerges through cell adhesion and its regulation.PLoS biology · 2021Article
- Linking single-cell decisions to collective behaviours in social bacteria.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- 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
- Kin recognition and outer membrane exchange (OME) in myxobacteria.Current opinion in microbiology · 2020Review
- The Syntrophy hypothesis for the origin of eukaryotes revisited.Nature microbiology · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Many organisms regulate their social life through kin recognition, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, we use a social bacterium, Myxococcus xanthus, to investigate kin recognition at the molecular level. By direct visualization of a cell surface receptor, TraA, we show how these myxobacteria identify kin and transition towards multicellularity. TraA is fluid on the cell surface, and homotypic interactions between TraA from juxtaposed cells trigger the receptors to coalesce, representing a 'molecular handshake'. Polymorphisms within TraA govern social recognition such that receptors cluster only between individuals bearing compatible alleles. TraA clusters, which resemble eukaryotic gap junctions, direct the robust exchange of cellular goods that allows heterogeneous populations to transition towards homeostasis. This work provides a conceptual framework for how microbes use a fluid outer membrane receptor to recognize and assemble kin cells into a cooperative multicellular community that resembles a tissue.
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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.