Chain organization of dimple-ended magnetite magnetosomes supports field-dependent cell linking in unicellular magnetotactic bacteria.

Authors

Jinhua Li, Yuqin Wang, Peiyu Liu, Qianqian Lan, Xiang Zhao, Nicolas Menguy, Jian Wang, Eric Leroy, Jiawei Liu, Rafal E Dunin-Borkowski, Wyn Williams, Andrew P Roberts, Rixiang Zhu, Yongxin Pan

Published in

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Volume 123. Issue 40. Pages e2615054123. Oct 06, 2026. Epub Sep 29, 2026.

Abstract

Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are generally thought to navigate as individual cells by using intracellular magnetosome chains that provide a stable magnetic moment for orientation along magnetic field lines. Whether nonclassical magnetosome geometries and particle-scale magnetic states can support robust chain-level magnetic function, and potentially mediate interactions between cells, remains unresolved. Here, to we report a unicellular magnetotactic bacterium, strain WYHV-1, that biomineralizes comparatively large prismatic magnetite magnetosomes with distinctive dimples at both crystal ends and organizes them into a single tightly packed intracellular chain. Off-axis electron holography reveals that individual dimple-ended particles commonly exhibit single-vortex behavior rather than a canonical uniformly magnetized single-domain (SD) state. Micromagnetic simulations indicate a size-dependent transition from SD to single-vortex behavior in dimple-ended particles and that tight intrachain coupling suppresses particle-scale nonuniformity, producing a predominantly SD-like magnetization within the chain and a strong chain-parallel remanent moment. Further simulations indicate that chain-generated stray fields concentrated at chain ends can generate intercellular magnetic attraction strong enough to promote head-to-tail linking between neighboring cells over subcellular distances. These results provide a physical explanation for field-dependent multicell-like assemblies observed in hanging-drop experiments and indicate that magnetic performance in WYHV-1 is governed primarily by chain-level organization rather than by the magnetic state of idealized isolated particles. Our findings expand the known structural and magnetic diversity of biogenic magnetite and reveal a cross-scale mechanism by which magnetosome chains support cellular orientation, and under field-aligned experimental conditions, mediate intercellular magnetic organization.

PMID:
42809402
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 30 Sep 2026.

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