Rapid evolutionary turnover of mobile genetic elements drives bacterial resistance to phages

Although it is generally accepted that phages drive bacterial evolution, how these dynamics play out in the wild remains poorly understood. We found that susceptibility to viral killing in marine is mediated by large and highly diverse mobile genetic elements. These phage defense elements display ex...

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Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2021-10, Vol.374 (6566), p.488-492
Main Authors: Hussain, Fatima Aysha, Dubert, Javier, Elsherbini, Joseph, Murphy, Mikayla, VanInsberghe, David, Arevalo, Philip, Kauffman, Kathryn, Rodino-Janeiro, Bruno Kotska, Gavin, Hannah, Gomez, Annika, Lopatina, Anna, Le Roux, Frédérique, Polz, Martin F
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bacteria
Bacteriophages - pathogenicity
Cell surface
Chemical synthesis
Evolution
Evolution, Molecular
Genetic diversity
Genetic Variation
Genomes
Interspersed Repetitive Sequences
Life Sciences
Microbiology and Parasitology
Phages
Phenotypes
Receptors
Vibrio
Vibrio - genetics
Vibrio - virology
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Summary:Although it is generally accepted that phages drive bacterial evolution, how these dynamics play out in the wild remains poorly understood. We found that susceptibility to viral killing in marine is mediated by large and highly diverse mobile genetic elements. These phage defense elements display exceedingly fast evolutionary turnover, resulting in differential phage susceptibility among clonal bacterial strains while phage receptors remain invariant. Protection is cumulative, and a single bacterial genome can harbor 6 to 12 defense elements, accounting for more than 90% of the flexible genome among close relatives. The rapid turnover of these elements decouples phage resistance from other genomic features. Thus, resistance to phages in the wild follows evolutionary trajectories alternative to those predicted from laboratory-based evolutionary experiments.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.abb1083