{"doi":"10.3389/fmicb.2022.879090","title":"Conditional and Synthetic Type IV Pili-Dependent Motility Phenotypes in Myxococcus xanthus","abstract":"Myxobacteria exhibit a variety of complex social behaviors that all depend on coordinated movement of cells on solid surfaces. The cooperative nature of cell movements is known as social (S)-motility. This system is powered by cycles of type IV pili (Tfp) extension and retraction. Exopolysaccharide (EPS) also serves as a matrix to hold cells together. Here, we characterized a new S-motility gene in Myxococcus xanthus . This mutant is temperature-sensitive (Ts – ) for S-motility; however, Tfp and EPS are made. A 1 bp deletion was mapped to the MXAN_4099 locus and the gene was named sglS . Null mutations in sglS exhibit a synthetic enhanced phenotype with a null sglT mutation, a previously characterized S-motility gene that exhibits a similar Ts – phenotype. Our results suggest that SglS and SglT contribute toward Tfp function at high temperatures in redundant pathways. However, at low temperatures only one pathway is necessary for wild-type S-motility, while in the double mutant, motility is nearly abolished at low temperatures. Interestingly, the few cells that do move do so with a high reversal frequency. We suggest SglS and SglT play conditional roles facilitating Tfp retraction and hence motility in M. xanthus .","journal":"Frontiers in Microbiology","year":2022,"id":286246,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9534,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":339244,"name":"Daniel Wall","orcid":"0000-0002-0273-1371","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":670385,"name":"Kalpana Subedi","orcid":"0000-0002-1808-3268","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":50,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:29:48.841035Z","pmid":"35586861","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}