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Should I stay or should I go: transmission trade-offs in phages and plasmids

Jana S Huisman1, Andrina Bernhard2, Claudia Igler3

  • 1Physics of Living Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Trends in Microbiology
|February 20, 2025
PubMed

Insights

Mobile genetic elements balance horizontal and vertical transmission to spread virulence and antibiotic resistance. Environmental factors like host density influence this balance, aligning theory with experimental data.

Area of Science:

  • Microbiology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Genetics

Background:

  • Mobile genetic elements (MGEs), including bacteriophages and plasmids, are key drivers of bacterial virulence and antibiotic resistance.
  • MGEs must balance horizontal and vertical transmission for successful propagation.
  • The costs associated with horizontal transmission can conflict with MGE reproductive strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the influence of environmental variables on the balance between horizontal and vertical transmission of MGEs.
  • To test predictions derived from virulence-transmission trade-off (VTT) theory.
  • To identify differences and gaps between theoretical models and experimental findings for phages and plasmids.

Main Methods:

  • Application of virulence-transmission trade-off (VTT) theory.
  • Analysis of environmental factors: host density, host physiology, and competitors.
  • Comparison of theoretical predictions with existing experimental evidence on MGE transmission regulation.

Main Results:

  • Identified three key environmental variable groups influencing MGE transmission balance.
  • Theoretical predictions regarding optimal responses to environmental cues generally align with experimental data.
  • Observed alignment for both temperate phages and conjugative plasmids.

Conclusions:

  • Environmental factors critically regulate the transmission strategies of MGEs.
  • VTT theory provides a useful framework for understanding MGE evolution.
  • Further research is needed to address discrepancies between theory and experiments and to explore phage-plasmid differences.
Keywords:
environmental cueshorizontal gene transferplasmid conjugationprophage inductiontransmission regulationvirulence–transmission trade-off

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