Tutorial for the growth and development of Myxococcus xanthus as a Model System at the Intersection of Biology and Physics
Abstract
Myxococcus xanthus is a unicellular organism whose cells possess the ability to move and communicate, leading to the emergence of complex collective properties and behaviours. This has made it an ideal model system to study the emergence of collective behaviours in interdisciplinary research efforts lying at the intersection of biology and physics, especially in the growing field of active matter research. Often, challenges arise when setting up reliable and reproducible culturing protocols. This tutorial provides a clear and comprehensive guide on the culture, growth, development, and experimental sample preparation of \textit{M. xanthus}. Additionally, it includes some representative examples of experiments that can be conducted using these samples, namely motility assays, fruiting body formation, predation, and elasticotaxis.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2407.18714,
title = {Tutorial for the growth and development of Myxococcus xanthus as a Model System at the Intersection of Biology and Physics},
author = {Jesus Manuel Antúnez Domínguez and Laura Pérez García and Natsuko Rivera-Yoshida and Jasmin Di Franco and David Steiner and Alejandro V. Arzola and Mariana Benítez and Charlotte Hamngren Blomqvist and Roberto Cerbino and Caroline Beck Adiels and Giovanni Volpe},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.18714},
year = {2024}
}