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What is dienes phenomenon?
Proteus is a genus of bacteria in the family of Enterobacteriaceae. Proteus species are famous for their swarming on solid culture media. When different Proteus species s…warm towards each other, a line of inhibited growth results where strains meet. This was first observed in 1946 by Dienes and is referred to as the Dienes phenomenon. The cause of the formation of a Dienes line is still unknown. For a long time, scientists though that boundary formation was solely due to production of bacteriocins, called proticines; however, boundaries formed even when no proticines were present (Senior, J Gen Micro 102:235). This phenomenon is of value in differentiating the two strains of Proteus for epidemiological purposes. The earlier entry below is not consistent with the current (2009) scientific understanding: [This line of inhibited growth results from the production of and sensitivity to different types of bacteriocins, namely, proticines, produced by different strains of Proteus species. If two strains were able to detect different proticines produced by a neighbor, there would be growth inhibition and the formation of a Dienes line. Alternatively, if no proticine difference were detected, the neighboring swarmer would be recognized as "self" and the swarms would interact.] (MORE)
