Microscopic Symbiosis Time-Lapse: Mortierella elongata and Burkholderia Growth Interaction 🔬🍄

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOWcCW5TiII

Original video: https://youtu.be/UOWcCW5TiII

Published on: 01 October 2019

Witness the hidden world of inter-kingdom communication in this combined time-lapse study of the fungus Mortierella elongata and the bacterium Burkholderia. This video merges two critical perspectives of microbial symbiosis—from colony-wide attraction to the precision of single hyphae growth.

As poplar-associated microbes, these two species exhibit a unique "growth-promoting" relationship. Through these time-lapses, we see how they signal to one another across distances and how the fungus physically accelerates its growth upon sensing bacterial metabolites.

Video Segments:

Part 1: Colony Interaction (6 Hours) – Watch the M. elongata colony (left) actively growing toward the Burkholderia bacterial colony (right). This sequence captures the "sensing" phase where fungal hyphae at the perimeter increase their expansion rate just before making physical contact.

Part 2: Microfluidic Precision (60 Minutes) – A high-magnification look at M. elongata hyphae navigating a custom microfluidic device. This setup allows for the precise measurement of how individual fungal filaments respond to signals and nutrient exchanges in a controlled liquid environment.

Keywords: Bacterial–fungal Interactions, Microfluidics, Metabolomics,Fatty acid, Symbiotic evolution, Mortierella elongata, Burkholderia, Plant associated microbes

Citation: Uehling JK, Entler MR, Meredith HR, Millet LJ, Timm CM, Aufrecht JA, Bonito GM, Engle NL, Labbé JL, Doktycz MJ, Retterer ST, Spatafora JW, Stajich JE, Tschaplinski TJ and Vilgalys RJ (2019) Microfluidics and Metabolomics Reveal Symbiotic Bacterial–Fungal Interactions Between Mortierella elongata and Burkholderia Include Metabolite Exchange. Front. Microbiol. 10:2163. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.02163

Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0 - Creative Commons