Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Angert ER
PROVIDER: S-EPMC21488 | biostudies-literature | 1998 Aug
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 19980801 17
The Gram-positive bacterium Metabacterium polyspora is an uncultivated symbiont of the guinea pig gastrointestinal tract. Here we present evidence that in M. polyspora vegetative cell division has taken on a minor, and apparently dispensable, role in propagation. Instead, this unusual bacterium has evolved the capacity to produce progeny in the form of multiple endospores. Endospore formation is coordinated with transit of the bacterium through the gastrointestinal tract of the guinea pig. For t ...[more]