Myxococcus xanthus, like other myxobacteria, is a social bacterium that moves and feeds
cooperatively in predatory groups. On surfaces, rod-shaped vegetative cells move in search …

Competition shapes evolution. Toxic metals and metalloids have exerted selective pressure
on life since the rise of the first organisms on the Earth, which has led to the evolution and …

When it comes to the discovery and analysis of yet uncharted bacterial traits, pure cultures
are essential as only these allow detailed morphological and physiological characterization …

Copper is an essential cofactor of various enzymes, but free copper is highly toxic to living
cells. To maintain cellular metabolism at different ambient copper concentrations, bacteria …

Extracytoplasmic function σ factors (ECFs) represent a fundamental and widely distributed
principle of bacterial signal transduction that connects the perception of a stimulus (input) …

Responding to environmental cues is a prerequisite for survival in the microbial world.
Extracytoplasmic function σ factors (ECFs) represent the third most abundant and by far the …

The ubiquitous members of the multicopper oxidase family of enzymes oxidize a range of
aromatic substrates such as polyphenols, methoxy-substituted phenols, amines and …

Abstract Background The CRISPR/dCas9 system is a powerful tool to activate the
transcription of target genes in eukaryotic or prokaryotic cells, but lacks assays in complex …

Conditional expression of a gene is a powerful tool to study its function and is typically
achieved by placing the gene under the control of an inducible promoter. There is, however …

Myxococcus xanthus is a soil myxobacterium that exhibits a complex lifecycle with two
multicellular stages: cooperative predation and development. During predation …