9.C.11 The Bdelloplast Pore (Bdelloplast Pore) Family
Bdellovibrio are miniature predatory bacteria which invade, reseal, and digest other larger Gram-negative bacteria, including pathogens. Nutrients for the replication of Bdellovibrio come entirely from the digestion of the single invaded bacterium called a bdelloplast, which is bound by the original prey outer membrane. Bdellovibrio efficiently digest prey cells, yielding on average 4 to 6 progeny from digestion of a single prey cell of a genome size similar to that of the Bdellovibrio cell. Bdellovibrio septate synchronously after 'snake' formation to produce both odd and even numbers of progeny, even when two separate Bdellovibrio cells have invaded and developed within a single prey bacterium, producing two different amounts of progeny. When replication is complete, Bdellovibrio cells exit the exhausted prey and are seen leaving via discrete pores rather than by breakdown of the entire outer membrane of the prey (Fenton et al. 2010). The molecular nature of the pore is not known.