Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The movement exhibited by magnetite-containing bacteria that orient themselves along the lines of the earth's magnetic field.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biology The supposed ability to sense a magnetic field and coordinate movement in response, later discovered to be natural magnetism: such creatures orient themselves magnetically even after death.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined in 1975 by R P Blakemore to describe certain motile aquatic bacteria: formed as magnet- +‎ -o- + taxis.

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Examples

  • This is the first characterization of magnetotaxis genes whose coding sequence is located outside the MAI.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

  • To summarize, the discovery of a magnetotaxis islet gives new insight into the origins of magnetotactic behaviour in bacteria.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

  • We also found that mamE-like in the magnetotaxis islet and mamE from the MAI are transcribed in WT AMB-1 (data not shown).

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

  • The existence of magnetotaxis-specific genes outside the MAI does raise the question of their role in AMB-1 physiology.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

  • The common genetic background of the MAI in MC-1 and the MIS in AMB-1 that we postulate in this study would imply that their ancestors must have come into contact with the same "magnetotaxis gene provider", and therefore must have evolved in the same habitat before specializing in marine and fresh waters.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

  • Intriguingly, we identified a magnetotaxis genomic islet containing seven putative magnetotaxis genes including a mamK homologue.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

  • We chose to name this locus the magnetotaxis islet (MIS).

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

  • The genetic organization of the mam-like genes differs from their MAI counterparts since the seven Genetic organization of the magnetotaxis islet (MIS) compared to the magnetosome island (MAI) in

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

  • Jogler et al. [13] proposed separate horizontal gene transfer events could account for magnetotaxis in organisms like MC-1 and AMB-1 that live in distinct environments (marine vs. fresh water).

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

  • Finding MTB-related genes outside the MAI brings a new perspective to the genetic study of how magnetotaxis has been acquired by microorganisms.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jean-Baptiste Rioux et al. 2010

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