A centimeter-long bacterium with DNA contained in metabolically active, membrane-bound organelles

Volland, Jean-Marie; Gonzalez‐Rizzo, Silvina; Gros, Olivier; Tyml, Tomáš; Ivanova, Natalia V.; Schulz, Frederik; Goudeau, Danielle; Elisabeth, Nathalie H.; Nath, Nandita; Udwary, Daniel W.; Malmstrom, Rex R.; Guidi‐Rontani, Chantal; Bolte-Kluge, Susanne; Davies, Karen M.; Jean, Maïtena; Mansot, Jean-Louis; Mouncey, Nigel J.; Angert, Esther R.; Woyke, Tanja; Date, Shailesh V.

doi:10.1126/science.abb3634

Cited by 65 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…In fact, many bacteria are known to subsist as filamentous forms that divide infrequently. An extreme version of the filamentous lifestyle was recently discovered in the marine organism Thiomargarita magnifica , which average lengths of nearly a centimeter (58). This remarkable bacterium was found to harbor ∼37,000 copies of its genome per millimeter of cell length, evidence of a dramatic uncoupling between growth and cell division.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnesium modulates Bacillus subtilis cell division frequency

Guo

Herman

2022

Preprint

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By chance, we discovered a window of extracellular magnesium (Mg2+) availability that modulates Bacillus subtilis division frequency without affecting growth rate. In this window, cells grown with excess Mg2+ produce shorter cells than those grown in unsupplemented medium. The Mg2+-responsive adjustment in cell length occurs in both rich and minimal media and in domesticated and undomesticated strains. Of other divalent cations tested, manganese (Mn2+) and zinc (Zn2+) also resulted in cell shortening, but only at concentrations that affected growth. Cell length decreased proportionally with increasing Mg2+ from 0.2 mM to 2.0 mM, with little or no detectable change in labile, intracellular Mg2+ based on a riboswitch reporter. Cells grown in excess Mg2+ had fewer nucleoids and possessed more FtsZ-rings per unit cell length, consistent with increased division frequency. Remarkably, when shifting cells from unsupplemented to supplemented medium, more than half of the cell length decrease occurred in the first 10 min, consistent with rapid division onset. Relative to unsupplemented cells, cells growing at steady-state with excess Mg2+ showed enhanced expression of a large number of SigB-regulated genes and activation of the Fur, MntR, and Zur regulons. Thus, by manipulating the availability of one nutrient, we were able to uncouple growth rate from division frequency and identify transcriptional changes suggesting cell division is accompanied by oxidative stress and an enhanced demand to sequester and/or increase uptake of iron, Mn2+, and Zn2+.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnesium modulates Bacillus subtilis cell division frequency

Guo

Herman

2022

Preprint

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“…call Thiomargarita magnifica [6]. This is a collaborative work between French teams from the University of the West Indies, the Museum of Natural History, Sorbonne University, and American teams from the University of California, Berkeley.…”

Section: La Version Française De L'article Est Disponible à La Suite ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Jean-Marie Volland et al viennent de publier dans Science la découverte d'une nouvelle bactérie géante qu'ils appellent Thiomargarita magnifica [6]. Il s'agit d'un travail collaboratif entre des équipes françaises de l'université des Antilles, du Muséum d'Histoire naturelle, de Sorbonne Université, et des équipes américaines de l'université de Californie, Berkeley.…”

Section: Découverte De Thiomargarita Magnificaunclassified

A new giant bacterium reminiscent of eukaryotes

Berche¹

2022

Comptes Rendus. Biologies

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“…The large size of the filaments up to cm in length is a-typical for bacteria and archaea. However, Volland et al (2022) described recent cm-long bacteria, and the term 'microorganisms' in the original description that they can be observed only on the microscopic scale, is not really appropriate. Putative cmsized Precambrian fossils (different from the Volyn biota) were reported from the 2.1 Ga old Francevillian biota (El Albani et al, 2014); however, they are completely pyritized and occur in diagenetically overprinted black shales, which makes the interpretation difficult.…”

Section: Model For a Precambrian Deep Biosphere Ecosystemmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Volyn biota (Ukraine) – 1.5 Ga old (micro)fossils in 3D-preservation, a spotlight on the ‘boring billion’

Franz

Khomenko²,

Lyckberg³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. The Volyn biota, fossilized organisms with a minimum age of 1.5 Ga, were found in cavities in granitic pegmatites from the Korosten pluton, NW Ukrainian shield. Fossilization was due to influx of hydrothermal fluorine-rich waters, which silicified the outermost part of the organisms, thus preserving the 3D morphology. Details of the morphology (investigated by scanning electron microscopy) show that the majority of the specimens is filamentous, of a large variety with diameters ranging from ~10 µm to ~200 µm, thin filaments with typical branching, thick filaments with ball-shaped outgrowths and dented surface. Filaments can be straight or conical, curvilinear or strongly curved, up to mm in length, some with a central channel. Some filaments show indications for segmentation, are grown as sessile organisms onto substrate; others show both intact ends, indicating growth in soft medium or floating in water. Objects with flaky morphology and agglutinating filaments are interpreted as fossil biofilms. Other objects are hollow and show a large variety of forms; spherical objects are scarce. Infrared spectroscopy indicates the presence of chitosan in one filament, electron microprobe analysis of nm-sized inclusions in filaments identified the presence of Bi(Te,S) minerals, and both observations are compatible with the interpretation of filaments as fungi-like organisms. Stable C- and N-isotope data of bulk samples are in the range of -31 to -47 ‰ δ13C/12C, and of +3 to +10 ‰ δ15N/14N, indicating possible methanogenic bacteria as part of the subsurface micro-ecosystem. The Volyn biota show that at 1.5 Ga fungi-like organisms lived in the continental deep biosphere, where complex forms of life existed, well above the microscopic level.

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A centimeter-long bacterium with DNA contained in metabolically active, membrane-bound organelles

Cited by 65 publications

References 83 publications

Magnesium modulates Bacillus subtilis cell division frequency

Magnesium modulates Bacillus subtilis cell division frequency

A new giant bacterium reminiscent of eukaryotes

The Volyn biota (Ukraine) – 1.5 Ga old (micro)fossils in 3D-preservation, a spotlight on the ‘boring billion’

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