[11][12][13] P. dendritiformis is a social microorganism: when grown under growth conditions that mimic natural environments such as hard surfaces, it forms colonies of 109-1012 cells with remarkably complex and dynamic architectures (Figure 1).

[14][15] The P. dendritiformis exhibit many distinct physiological and genetic traits including β-galactosidase-like activity causing colonies to turn blue on X-gal plates and multiple drug resistance (MDR) (including septrin, penicillin, kanamycin, chloramphenicol, ampicillin, tetracycline, spectinomycin, streptomycin and mitomycin C. Colonies that are grown on surfaces in Petri dishes exhibit several folds higher drug resistance in comparison to growth in liquid media.

[14][15][16][17][18] Pattern formation and self-organization in microbial systems is an intriguing phenomenon, reflection social behaviors of bacteria[17][19] that might provide insights into the evolutionary development of the collective action of cells in higher organisms.

[17] Communicating with each other using a variety of chemical signals, bacteria exchange information regarding population size, a myriad of individual environmental measurements at different locations, their internal states and their phenotypic and epigenetic adjustments.

Under conditions somewhat more favorable to motion, such as growth on a softer substrate, the bacteria engineer classes of chiral colony patterns in which the branches are thinner and curl in the same direction (Figure 2).

The analysis also unveiled the P. dendritiformis potential to produces a wealth of enzymes and proteases as well as a great variety of antimicrobial substances that affect a wide range of microorganisms.

[29] By employing molecular biology methods combined with the new genome sequencing information and bioinformatics, they discovered a new toxin (sibling lethal factor), which acts selectively only on the same bacterial strain.