Patescibacteria are a group of puzzling, tiny microbes whose manner of staying alive has been difficult to fathom. Scientists can cultivate only a few types, yet these bacteria are a diverse group found in many environments.
The few types of Patescibacteria that researchers can grow in the lab reside on the cell surfaces of another, larger host microbe. Patescibacteria in general lack the genes required to make many molecules necessary for life, such as the amino acids that make up proteins, the fatty acids that form membranes, and the nucleotides in DNA. This has led researchers to speculate that many of them rely on other bacteria to grow.behind the unusual Patescibacteria lifestyle.
The teams behind the study, headed by Joseph Mougous' lab in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, were interested in Patescibacteria for several reasons. The group of Patescibacteria analyzed in this latest research belongs to the Saccharibacteria. These live in a variety of land and water environments but are best known for inhabiting the human mouth. They have been part of the human oral microbiome at least since the Middle Stone Age and have been linked to human oral health.
Possible host-interaction factors uncovered in the study include cell surface structures that may help Saccharibacteria attach to host cells, and a specialized secretion system that might be used for transporting nutrients.
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