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 Paenibacillus vortex 

Paenibacillus vortex is a colonizing bacteria that forms intricate patterns. This article will dive into P. vortex’s cell morphology and features, phylogeny and genome evolution, metabolic details, and relevance to a broader system.

Cell Morphology and Features

The morphology and features of Paenibacillus vortex (p. vortex) show “intricate colonial patterns” (Ingham & Jacob, 2008) due to its ability to perform motility movements over surfaces. These patterns present “geometries that are highly sensitive” (Ingham & Jacob, 2008) and adaptive to the environment. P. vortex is able to undergo these swarming, rotating motility movements due to the presence of flagella. This is a social formation because the cells involved can only aggregate when there are other swarming cells with flagella involved.

P. vortex demonstrates these patterns by means of communication within its cells. According to Finkelshtein et al., 2017, P. vortex has a high number of genes that communicate to make the patterns, such as “two-component system (TCS), transcription factors (TFs), transport and defense related genes”. The geometries formed are capable of adapting to various environments due to the presence of two subpopulations found within P. vortex; these colonies make the bacterium flexible and versatile. This versatility within the colonies, along with the flagella, help create the intricate patterns that commonly form on Petri dishes.

Paenibacillus vortex shows a novel mechanism for spreading antibiotic resistance. P. vortex is flagellated bacteria known for combining to create motile colonies. They also show unique interactions with other bacteria by utilizing antibiotic degrading bacteria with them as their colonies travel. This interaction helps both bacteria, P. vortex travel to harsher environments and the antibiotic resistant bacteria get transport. (Finkelshtein et al., 2015)

During the colonial growth of these lubricating swarming bacteria, they display distinctive intricate patterns. Modeling new patterns remains a problem for academics in the subject at the moment. (Cohen et al., 2000)

Phylogeny and Genome Evolution

Paenibacillus vortex consists of a pattern forming and social behavior in order to develop intricate colonies (Sirota-Madi et al., 2010). It is a Gram-positive bacterium that lives happily in the spores of soil bacterium. There are many genes involved in Paenibacillus vortex that have processes to produce antimicrobials and enzymes that degrade. This aids in the ability of this bacterium to survive and prosper among other soil bacteriums. P. vortex possesses exceptional abilities to recognize and respond to a wide range of signaling molecules and environmental variables, which may be linked to its capacity to rearrange and replicate complex colony designs (Sirota-Madi et al., 2010).

The genome size of Paenibacillus vortex is 6.39 Mb and is considered a non-nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Xie et al., 2014). In other words, P. vortex contains 6.39 million nucleotide base pairs and is anaerobic. Also, the complete genome sequence shows a hybrid assembly. While P. vortex is part of a group sister to nitrogen-fixing bacteria, it likely originated from nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Members included in Paenibacillus were initially included in the genus Bacillus, but after the development of 16S rRNA sequencing technology, scientists have now made Paenibacillus its own genus (Patowary & Deka, 2020). This technology allowed scientists to group members of Paenibacillus based on their morphological similarities.

Metabolic Details

According to Sirota-Madi et al., 2010, the genome sequence of Paenibacillus vortex contains 6,437 open reading frames (ORFs), 73 non-coding RNA genes, a surprising amount of two-component system (TCS) genes, transcription factors, transport and defense related genes, and lastly genes involved in producing antimicrobial compounds. Due to this extensive genome sequence, P. vortex is capable of producing extracellular degrading enzymes that induce biochemical reactions, which help it react to a wide range of environmental conditions and help it perceive many different signaling molecules.

Relevance to a Broader System

Paenibacillus vortex is a very motile bacteria, which means it has a high amount of flagellar genes that allow it to disperse (Roth et al., 2013). '' P. vortex'' has low ATP levels and high resistance and tolerance to antibiotics making it easy for them to translocate when antibiotics are present. This resistance to antibiotics may provide insight to how colonizing bacteria, like P. vortex, can adapt to antibiotics (Roth et al., 2013).

P. vortex has a lot of motility and cell to cell interaction which grows on soft surfaces and forms foraging swarms. These swarms act as arms and are sent out to go search for the food needed to keep the P. vortex viable. These swarms cross each other's paths and change directions when your food is sensed around. They can also split and reunite when finding food and nutrients. (Sirota- Madi et al., 2010)

P. vortex has a wide variety of importance, ranging from benefiting people, animals, plants, and the overall environment. It can solubilize phosphorus by producing gluconic acid, fix nitrogen, and enable iron acquisition for plants, which in turn helps increase crop growth (Grady et al., 2016). Along with these growth promoting factors for plants, P. vortex simultaneously acts as a defendant against threats like insects, predators, and phytopathogens by producing its own insecticides and antimicrobials. If a threat is occurring, then P. vortx will also send signals to the plants and the plant will produce its own defensive compounds (Grady et al., 2016).

References

Cohen, I., Ron, I. G., & Ben-Jacob, E. (2000). From branching to nebula patterning during colonial development of the Paenibacillus alvei bacteria. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications, 286(1), 321–336. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uvu.edu/10.1016/S0378-4371(00)00335-6

Finkelshtein, A., Roth, D., Ben Jacob, E., & Ingham, C. J. (2015). Bacterial swarms recruit cargo bacteria to pave the way in toxic environments. MBio, 6(3), e00074. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00074-15

Finkelshtein, A., Sirota-Madi, A., Rosenberg, D. R., & Ingham, C. J. (2017, January). Paenibacillus Vortex — a bacterial guide to the wisdom of ... Research Gate. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309641148_Paenibacillus_vortex_-_A_Bacterial_Guide_to_the_Wisdom_of_the_Crowd_Sign-Mediated_Interactions_between_Cells_and_Organisms

Grady, E. N., MacDonald, J., Liu, L., Richman, A., & Yuan, Z.-C. (2016, December 1). Current knowledge and perspectives of paenibacillus: A review - microbial cell factories. BioMed Central. Retrieved April 16, 2022, from https://microbialcellfactories.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12934-016-0603-7

Ingham, C. J., & Jacob, E. B. (2008, February 25). Swarming and complex pattern formation in Paenibacillus Vortex studied by imaging and tracking cells. BMC microbiology. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18298829/#:~:text=The%20Gram-positive%20bacterium%20Paenibacillus%20vortex%20exhibits%20advanced%20cooperative,a%20simple%20organism%20are%20not%20well%20understood.%20Results%3A

Patowary, R., & Deka, H. (2020, July 10). Paenibacillus. Beneficial Microbes in Agro-Ecology. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128234143000174

Roth, D., Finkelshtein, A., Ingham, C., Helman, Y., Sirota-Madi, A., Brodsky, L., & Ben-Jacob, E. (2013, September). Identification and characterization of a highly motile and antibiotic refractory subpopulation involved in the expansion of swarming colonies of paenibacillus vortex. Environmental microbiology. Retrieved April 16, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3908376/

Sirota-Madi, Alexandra, et al. “Genome Sequence of the Pattern Forming Paenibacillus Vortex Bacterium Reveals Potential for Thriving in Complex Environments.” BMC Genomics, vol. 11, no. 1, Dec. 2010, p. 710, https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-11-710.

Sirota-Madi, A., Olender, T., Helman, Y., Ingham, C., Brainis, I., Roth, D., Hagi, E., Brodsky, L., Leshkowitz, D., Galatenko, V., Nikolaev, V., Mugasimangalam, R. C., Bransburg-Zabary, S., Gutnick, D. L., Lancet, D., & Ben-Jacob, E. (2010, December 17). Genome sequence of the pattern forming paenibacillus vortex bacterium reveals potential for thriving in complex environments - BMC genomics. BioMed Central. Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2164-11-710

Xie, J., Du, Z., Bai, L., & Tian, C. F. (2014, March). Comparative genomic analysis of N -fixing and Non-N fixing ... ResearchGate. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260996761_Comparative_Genomic_Analysis_of_N2-Fixing_and_Non-N2-Fixing_Paenibacillus_spp_Organization_Evolution_and_Expression_of_the_Nitrogen_Fixation_Genes/fulltext/0333f6ab0cf248e8c4af47b3/Comparative-Genomic-Analysis-of-N2-Fixing-and-Non-N2-Fixing-Paenibacillus-spp-Organization-Evolution-and-Expression-of-the-Nitrogen-Fixation-Genes.pdf