https://pubpeer.com/publications/7C9F0CCD493B1129135A3A918B0...
Search the page for the term and you'll see the relevant comment.
The term seems to stem from an OCR cluster-mishap, where a valid scientific document was once OCR'ed incorrectly. The page has 2 columns of text and the left column has a running sentence 'ending' with "vegetative" before continuing on the next line in the same column. But at the same height in the column on the right a sentence continues, visually starting with "electron microscopy".
The term is entirely meaningless in the field.
This isn't just "using a little ChatGPT to brush up my English" at all.
Other comments point out that the contents of abstract and article don't even match, the abstract being about bacteria but the article contents about gene delivery...
I don't need convincing that ML will have tremendous positive impact in math and science disciplines, it's obvious, but the way ML was used in this case is not a defensible usage.