Paenibacillus vortex
| Paenibacillus vortex | |
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| Figure 1: Colony organization of the P. vortex bacteria when grown on 15g/L peptone and 2.25% (w/v) agar for four days. The bright yellow dots are the vortices. The colonies were grown in a Petri dish size 8.8cm and stained with Coomassie dyes (Brilliant Blue). The colors were inverted to emphasize higher densities using the brighter shades of yellow. | |
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| Paenibacillus vortex | |
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Bacillus vortex Ash et al. 1994 | |
Paenibacillus vortex is a species of pattern-forming bacteria, first discovered in the early 1990s by Eshel Ben-Jacob's group at Tel Aviv University. It is a social microorganism that forms colonies with complex and dynamic architectures. P. vortex is mainly found in heterogeneous and complex environments, such as the rhizosphere, the soil region directly influenced by plant roots.
The genus Paenibacillus comprises facultative anaerobic, endospore-forming bacteria originally included within the genus Bacillus and then reclassified as a separate genus in 1993. Bacteria in the genus have been detected in a variety of environments such as: soil, water, vegetable matter, forage and insect larvae, as well as clinical samples. Paenibacillus spp., including P. vortex, produce extracellular enzymes that catalyze a variety of synthetic reactions in industrial, agricultural and medical applications. Various Paenibacillus spp. also produce antimicrobial substances that can affect micro-organisms such as fungi, in addition to soil and plant pathogenic bacteria.