Table of Contents

cover image

Volume 23, Number 6
24 March 2004

pp 1217-1410

Collage based on the photograph of a living community of prokaryotic cells. Bacillus subtilis forms these giant "structures" following successive waves of swarming from a central inoculum. Co-ordinated swarming proceeds over an agar surface at more than 1 cm per hour, to form a community of more than 2 billion cells, 10 cm in diameter after 24 hours. Little is known about the basis of this process. Daria Julkowska, Michal Obuchowski, Barry Holland and Simone J. Séror, from the Institute of Genetics and Microbiology, University of Paris-Sud, (http://www.igmors.u-psud.fr/) are studying the numerous molecular switches and signalling mechanisms that control the stages of differentiation of the bacteria, necessary for the modular assembly of the complex architecture of the swarm.

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