Aggregicoccus is a myxobacterial genus inherently deficient in fruiting genes
Xinran Du, Jianing Wang, Jingjing Wang, Yihan Xu, Qi Chen, Zhiwei Su, Yue-zhong Li · 2026
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Description
Most myxobacteria build fruiting bodies to spread their spores, a trait long treated as a mark of the group. Xinran Du and co-authors report five new strains of one genus that never fruits. Lab work sorted the strains into three new species, joining the one species already known. All strains can still make spores. The team compared their genomes with a fruiting relative of similar genome size.
The non-fruiting strains lack much of the gene set tied to fruiting body building. So the trait is missing from the genes, not just switched off by lab conditions. The authors propose scoring that gene set when sorting non-fruiting species. Their work, published in twenty twenty-six, reshapes how this bacterial group is defined.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Xinran Du, Jianing Wang, Jingjing Wang, Yihan Xu, Qi Chen, Zhiwei Su, Yue-zhong Li |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 44 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |