General Information: Bacterium that undergoes asymmetric cell division and differentiation. Caulobacter vibroides, also known as Caulobacter crescentus, inhabits aquatic environments and plays an important part in biogeochemical cycling of organic nutrients. This bacterium undergoes an unusual developmental cycle in which a swarming motile cell becomes a stalked cell that is attached to a solid surface. The stalked cell then undergoes asymmetric cell division and produces one flagellated motile daughter cell and one stalked daughter cell. Thus, the asymmetric processes in this organism provide useful models for differentiation and development. This organism also contains a number of energy-dependent transport system, presumably enabling growth in the substrate-sparse aquatic environments that it lives in.