Born to be wild: Fungal highways let bacteria travel in exchange for thiamine

(University of Tsukuba) Researchers from the University of Tsukuba have found a fungal-bacterial relationship that allows bacteria to travel along fungal highways and supply the fungus with thiamine (vitamin B1), which is essential to most organisms. Thiamine provided by the bacteria helped the fungal filaments to grow, and the highways let the bacteria travel farther than otherwise possible. Research in this area could be applied to settings ranging from fermentation to plant and human disease ...