Additionally, the authors sequenced the genome of this organism and identified homologs to genes conserved among filamentous cyanobacteria that have been demonstrated to be essential for motility in Nostoc punctiforme and may encode for the junctional pore proteins (hps locus) or a chemotaxis system (hmp locus).
Overall, this study presents observations related to slime-mediated motility on multiple scales (molecular, single-filament and colony), and integrates these findings into a coherent model for the relationship between the cellular organization and the behavior of the colony.