Journal
NATURE REVIEWS MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 12, Issue 2, Pages 115-124Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nrmicro3178
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Funding
- Dutch Applied Research Council
- UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
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Although bacteria frequently live as unicellular organisms, many spend at least part of their lives in complex communities, and some have adopted truly multicellular lifestyles and have abandoned unicellular growth. These transitions to multicellularity have occurred independently several times for various ecological reasons, resulting in a broad range of phenotypes. In this Review, we discuss the strategies that are used by bacteria to form and grow in multicellular structures that have hallmark features of multicellularity, including morphological differentiation, programmed cell death and patterning. In addition, we examine the evolutionary and ecological factors that lead to the wide range of coordinated multicellular behaviours that are observed in bacteria.
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