Analyses of microbial interspecies interactions mediated by flagella

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Interspecies interactions and resultant emergent functions are essential for microbial communities to play their roles in a variety of ecosystems, such as global element cycles, fermentative production, and water treatment. In modern microbiology that has developed based on pure-culture studies, however, knowledge on interspecies interactions is limited. This study was conducted to deepen our understanding of interspecies interactions, signal transduction, and emergence of community functions in methanogenic syntrophic consortia with particular focus on recently discovered flagellum-mediated interactions. We also investigated roles of flagella on the establishment of naturally occurring methanogenic communities. We found that flagellum-mediated symbiosis is important for establishing not only artificially assembled methanogenic consortia but also naturally occurring biofilm communities.