Microbial multicellular systems are physical assemblies of genetically identical or heterogeneous microorganisms that exhibit coordinated organization, spatial structuring, and division of labor beyond single-cell behavior. These systems include biofilms, filaments, aggregates, and fruiting bodies, where cell–cell adhesion, extracellular matrix production, and chemical signaling (e.g., quorum sensing, diffusible morphogens) generate emergent mechanical and physiological properties. As physical systems, they are characterized by collective dynamics such as pattern formation, phase-like transitions between dispersed and clustered states, and mechano-chemical feedbacks that regulate growth, differentiation, and resource allocation, making them key model systems for studying self-organization, robustness, and multicellularity in active matter.
Life moves in mysterious ways—and perhaps especially so for organisms that undergo dramatic shifts in levels of self-organization, such as Myxococcus xanthus. A custom-built artificial intelligence system developed by Rice ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 14, 2026
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A specific protein controls mRNA transport in fungi and distinguishes important from unimportant binding sites in the transported mRNAs. Researchers from Würzburg and Düsseldorf have discovered this mechanism.
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 8, 2026
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A research group led by Associate Professor Tetsuya Muramoto from the Faculty of Science, Toho University, has established a CRISPR genome editing technique that enables comparative analysis of the evolution of multicellularity ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 3, 2026
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Some single-celled organisms are known to transition to multicellularity during their lifetimes, usually either by cloning themselves or when many similar cells come together to form a larger multicellular organism. A new ...
Researchers have discovered and characterized at the atomic level a mechanism that enables bacterial pathogens—including hospital bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa—to assemble antibiotic-resistant ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 25, 2026
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14
Acinetobacter baumannii is a bacteria which can become a virulent killer in health-care settings among severely ill patients. The germ has rapidly developed drug resistance to even last-line carbapenem drugs. Now a group ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 20, 2026
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A Dartmouth study finds that molecular hitchhikers living within bacteria can make their hosts extra resistant to medical treatment by corralling them into tightly packed groups. The findings introduce a previously unknown ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 10, 2026
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Antibiotic resistance (AR) has steadily accelerated in recent years to become a global health crisis. As deadly bacteria evolve new ways to elude drug treatments for a variety of illnesses, a growing number of "superbugs" ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Feb 6, 2026
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359
Bacteria that thrive on Earth may not make it in the alien lands of Mars. A potential deterrent is perchlorate, a toxic chlorine-containing chemical discovered in Martian soil during various space missions.
Astrobiology
Jan 30, 2026
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105
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biology have discovered a remarkably streamlined strategy for developmental control in brown algae. They have shown that a single ARGONAUTE (AGO) protein orchestrates the transition ...
Ecology
Jan 29, 2026
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