Predatory Mechanisms of Myxobacteria and Their Potential in the Development of Biocontrol Agents.

Abstract

Climate change, environmental degradation, and the depletion of finite resources are intensifying the search for sustainable, bio-based solutions across agriculture, environmental management, and chemical production. Against this backdrop, myxobacteria have emerged as a valuable but still underused microbial resource, distinguished by their ecological versatility, multicellular behavior, predatory lifestyle, and biosynthetic capacity. This review integrates the mechanistic basis of myxobacterial predation with its translational potential in biocontrol, linking microbial ecology to applied biotechnology. The available evidence indicates that predation is not a single process but a coordinated program built from swarm behavior, gliding motility, contact-dependent killing, secreted hydrolytic enzymes, outer membrane vesicle (OMV)-mediated interference, nutrient competition, and specialized metabolites. Through these layers, myxobacteria antagonize phylogenetically diverse targets, including bacteria, fungi, oomycetes, and ciliates, with more limited evidence extending to cyanobacteria and nematodes. Unlike recent reviews that address either the cellular and genetic mechanisms of predation or antagonism against plant pathogens in isolation, this review connects mechanism with application and compares the maturity of the available evidence across target classes. Within this framework, selected bacterial and fungal plant-disease systems have field-level support; oomycetes are mechanistically well supported but have limited field validation; ciliates provide direct mechanistic predation evidence without biocontrol validation; cyanobacteria remain emerging with laboratory-based evidence; and nematodes remain preliminary, with evidence restricted to in vitro studies using Caenorhabditis elegans. Myxobacteria therefore merit continued investigation not only as model organisms for microbial ecology and natural product discovery but also as multifunctional platforms for sustainable biocontrol and broader biotechnological applications.