Abstract
It has long been thought that the life cycle of Streptomyces bacteria encompasses three developmental stages: vegetative hyphae, aerial hyphae and spores. Here, we show interactions between Streptomyces and fungi trigger a previously unobserved mode of Streptomyces development. We term these Streptomyces cells 'explorers', for their ability to adopt a non-branching vegetative hyphal conformation and rapidly transverse solid surfaces. Fungi trigger Streptomyces exploratory growth in part by altering the composition of the growth medium, and Streptomyces explorer cells can communicate this exploratory behaviour to other physically separated streptomycetes using an airborne volatile organic compound (VOC). These results reveal that interkingdom interactions can trigger novel developmental behaviours in bacteria, here, causing Streptomyces to deviate from its classically-defined life cycle. Furthermore, this work provides evidence that VOCs can act as long-range communication signals capable of propagating microbial morphological switches.
Highlights
Our current understanding of microbial growth and development stems largely from investigations conducted using single-species cultures
We found S. venezuelae alone grew vegetatively, albeit without any obvious branches, whereas S. venezuelae growing on S. cerevisiae raised aerial hyphae and sporulated
The canonical multicellular lifecycle of Streptomyces bacteria begins with fungus-like hyphal growth, and ends with sporulation (Figure 1A)
Summary
Our current understanding of microbial growth and development stems largely from investigations conducted using single-species cultures. It is becoming clear, that most bacteria and fungi exist as part of larger polymicrobial communities in their natural settings (Scherlach et al, 2013; Traxler and Kolter, 2015). Within the polymicrobial communities occupying the soil, Streptomyces represent the largest genus of the ubiquitous actinomycetes group These Gram-positive bacteria are renowned for both their complex developmental life cycle (Elliot et al, 2008) and their ability to produce an extraordinary range of specialized metabolites having antibiotic, antifungal, antiparasitic, and anticancer properties (Hopwood, 2007)
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