Bacterial Swarms Recruit Cargo Bacteria To Pave the Way in Toxic Environments
Author
Finkelshtein, Alin; Roth, Dalit; Ben Jacob, Eshel; Ingham, Colin J.
Date
2015Abstract
Swarming bacteria are challenged by the need to invade hostile environments. Swarms of the flagellated bacterium Paenibacillus vortex can collectively transport other microorganisms. Here we show that P.ᅠvortex can invade toxic environments by carrying antibiotic-degrading bacteria; this transport is mediated by a specialized, phenotypic subpopulation utilizing a process not dependent on cargo motility. Swarms of beta-lactam antibiotic (BLA)-sensitive P.ᅠvortex used beta-lactamase-producing, resistant, cargo bacteria to detoxify BLAs in their path. In the presence of BLAs, both transporter and cargo bacteria gained from this temporary cooperation; there was a positive correlation between BLA resistance and dispersal. P.ᅠvortex transported only the most beneficial antibiotic-resistant cargo (including environmental and clinical isolates) in a sustained way. P.ᅠvortex displayed a bet-hedging strategy that promoted the colonization of nontoxic niches by P.ᅠvortex alone; when detoxifying cargo bacteria were not needed, they were lost. This work has relevance for the dispersal of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms and for strategies for asymmetric cooperation with agricultural and medical implications.
Citation
Published Version
Type
Journal article
Publisher
Citable link to this page
https://hdl.handle.net/1911/94261Rights
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Link to License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/Metadata
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