A new bacterium isolated from an underground stream shows a novel multicellularity by self-organizing its filamentous cells like a liquid crystal and accommodating daughter cells in a sequential manner, which would be a new extant model of prokaryotic multicellularity.
Allele-specific expression, natural antisense transcripts, and developmental gene expression, but not RNA editing or developmental hourglass, act in concert to shape the transcriptome during the fruiting body formation of complex multicellular fungi.
A multipartite virus functionally spreads its distinct genome segments in distinct individual cells of the host plant, and complementation of the viral genes across cells allows a pluricellular infection cycle.
Jonathan E Phillips, Maribel Santos ... Duojia Pan
Genome editing in a close unicellular relative of animals suggests a premetazoan function of the Hippo pathway effector YAP/TAZ/Yorkie in the regulation of cytoskeletal dynamics and multicellular morphogenesis but not proliferation.
The development of colonies of cells in choanoflagellates, water-dwelling organisms that feed on bacteria, is triggered by the presence of very low concentrations of a lipid molecule produced by certain types of bacteria.
Anna S Trigos, Richard B Pearson ... David L Goode
Cancer is a consequence of the release of basal cellular functions inherited from our unicellular ancestors from the control of regulatory networks that evolved during the emergence of multicellularity.
Matthew Jemielita, Ned S Wingreen, Bonnie L Bassler
A quorum-sensing-controlled program of multicellularity, aggregation, is identified in Vibrio cholerae, which may be important for transitions between the marine niche and the human host.
John H Koschwanez, Kevin R Foster, Andrew W Murray
The ability to share resources for the benefit of all members of a group may have driven ancient organisms to evolve from a unicellular to a multicellular state.
Transient cell-cell contact of eukaryotic cells, called contact following locomotion, causes cell density segregation, and its high-density region traveled as a band within the disordered background.
