Myxococcus xanthus

All unapproved Citizendium articles may contain errors of fact, bias, grammar etc. A version of an article is unapproved unless it is marked as citable with a dedicated green template at the top of the page, as in this version of the 'Biology' article. Citable articles are intended to be of reasonably high quality. The participants in the Citizendium project make no representations about the reliability of Citizendium articles or, generally, their suitability for any purpose. This article is currently being developed as part of an Eduzendium student project in the framework of a course entitled Microbiology 201 at Queens College, CUNY. The course homepage can be found at CZ:Biol 201: General Microbiology. For the course duration, the article is closed to outside editing. Of course you can always leave comments on the discussion page. The anticipated date of course completion is May 21, 2009. One month after that date at the latest, this notice shall be removed. Besides, many other Citizendium articles welcome your collaboration!

Scientific classification

Description and significance

Myxococcus Xanthus is a social organism, which are self-organized, saprotrophic and predatory. M. Xanthus is a rod shaped, gram negative bacteria, which uses a form of gliding for locomotion. There's been recent discovery of two types of systems used for locomotion. The first system is type IV pilli, which is used as a type of hook. The second system is

References

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxococcus_xanthus>

<http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Mycoccus_xanthus>

Be sure to replace "Needs" in "Needs Workgroup" below with a workgroup name. See the "Workgroups" link on the left for a list of workgroups.