Multicellular Magnetotactic Bacteria Genome

Magnetoglobules are phylogenetically, morphologically and reproductively distinct from the extensively studied multicellular cyanobacteria, actinobacteria and myxobacteria. The origin of the magnetoglobules, the involvement of ESCRT-III in the formation of the vesicles and multicellular morphogenesis of magnetoglobules remain unknown. To better understand the evolution of magnetoglobule multicellularity here we sequenced four ellipsoidal and five spherical magnetoglobules, and analyzed them together with 44 unicellular MTB and the two spherical magnetoglobules genomes available in the Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB). The phylogenetic tree suggests that magnetoglobules evolved from a unicellular deltaproteobacterial ancestor.