Myxobacteria

The myxobacteria ("slime bacteria") are a group of bacteria that predominantly live in the soil and feed on insoluble organic substances. The myxobacteria have very large genomes relative to other bacteria, e.g. 9–10 million nucleotides except for Anaeromyxobacter and Vulgatibacter. One species of myxobacteria, Minicystis rosea, has the largest known bacterial genome with over 16 million nucleotides. The second largest is another myxobacteria Sorangium cellulosum.

Myxobacteria can move by gliding. They typically travel in swarms (also known as wolf packs), containing many cells kept together by intercellular molecular signals. Individuals benefit from aggregation as it allows accumulation of the extracellular enzymes that are used to digest food; this in turn increases feeding efficiency. Myxobacteria produce a number of biomedically and industrially useful chemicals, such as antibiotics, and export those chemicals outside the cell.

Myxobacteria are used to study the polysaccharide production in gram-negative bacteria like the model Myxococcus xanthus which have four different mechanisms of polysaccharide secretion and where a new Wzx/Wzy mechanism producing a new polysaccharide was identified in 2020.

Myxobacteria are also good models to study the multicellularity in the bacterial world.