Impact of Lytic Phages on Phosphorus- vs. Nitrogen-Limited Marine Microbes

Pourtois, Julie D.; Tarnita, Corina E.; Bonachela, Juan A.

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2020.00221

Cited by 22 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…As a final remark, note that we have explored the role of one single environmental factor at a time: dilution rate, and nutrient input concentration (see Supplementary Appendix ). Realistic conditions susceptible to be studied with our framework, from gut microbiome to phytoplankton populations, will necessitate of the inclusion of several abiotic (e.g., different nutrients) and biotic factors (e.g., grazers) varying simultaneously ( Weitz et al, 2015 ; Pourtois et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionarily Stable Coevolution Between a Plastic Lytic Virus and Its Microbial Host

2021

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Hosts influence and are influenced by viral replication. Cell size, for example, is a fundamental trait for microbial hosts that can not only alter the probability of viral adsorption, but also constrain the host physiological processes that the virus relies on to replicate. This intrinsic connection can affect the fitness of both host and virus, and therefore their mutual evolution. Here, we study the coevolution of bacterial hosts and their viruses by considering the dependence of viral performance on the host physiological state (viral plasticity). To this end, we modified a standard host-lytic phage model to include viral plasticity, and compared the coevolutionary strategies emerging under different scenarios, including cases in which only the virus or the host evolve. For all cases, we also obtained the evolutionary prediction of the traditional version of the model, which assumes a non-plastic virus. Our results reveal that the presence of the virus leads to an increase in host size and growth rate in the long term, which benefits both interacting populations. Our results also show that viral plasticity and evolution influence the classic host quality-quantity trade-off. Poor nutrient environments lead to abundant low-quality hosts, which tends to increase viral infection time. Conversely, richer nutrient environments lead to fewer but high-quality hosts, which decrease viral infection time. Our results can contribute to advancing our understanding of the microbial response to changing environments. For instance, both cell size and viral-induced mortality are essential factors that determine the structure and dynamics of the marine microbial community, and therefore our study can improve predictions of how marine ecosystems respond to environmental change. Our study can also help devise more reliable strategies to use phage to, for example, fight bacterial infections.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionarily Stable Coevolution Between a Plastic Lytic Virus and Its Microbial Host

2021

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“…These days, the importance of phages in aquatic environments is of ongoing relevance. When lysing their hosts, viruses cause the release of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the process called "viral shunt" [50]. Bacteria have a high protein-to-DNA ratio and, therefore, a high nitrogen-to-phosphorus (N:P) ratio.…”

Section: Phage Abundance and Significance In Aquatic Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phages as a Cohesive Prophylactic and Therapeutic Approach in Aquaculture Systems

2020

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Facing antibiotic resistance has provoked a continuously growing focus on phage therapy. Although the greatest emphasis has always been placed on phage treatment in humans, behind phage application lies a complex approach that can be usefully adopted by the food industry, from hatcheries and croplands to ready-to-eat products. Such diverse businesses require an efficient method for combating highly pathogenic bacteria since antibiotic resistance concerns every aspect of human life. Despite the vast abundance of phages on Earth, the aquatic environment has been considered their most natural habitat. Water favors multidirectional Brownian motion and increases the possibility of contact between phage particles and their bacterial hosts. As the global production of aquatic organisms has rapidly grown over the past decades, phage treatment of bacterial infections seems to be an obvious and promising solution in this market sector. Pathogenic bacteria, such as Aeromonas and Vibrio, have already proved to be responsible for mass mortalities in aquatic systems, resulting in economic losses. The main objective of this work is to summarize, from a scientific and industry perspective, the recent data regarding phage application in the form of targeted probiotics and therapeutic agents in aquaculture niches.

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“…Including plasticity can improve the dynamic description of other viral-mediated processes that are key for biogeochemical cycles and microbial diversity (e.g. viral shunt and shuttle) [ 20 , 22 , 23 ], and therefore the reliability of models that estimate primary production. The dynamics, and not only the end result, may also be of relevance to the design of anti-bacterial treatments (phage therapy [ 24 ]), or when studying viral infections of changeable communities such as the animal microbiome.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unconstrained coevolution of bacterial size and the latent period of plastic phage

Bonachela

Choua²,

Heath

2022

PLoS ONE

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Viruses play critical roles in the dynamics of microbial communities. Lytic viruses, for example, kill significant fractions of autotrophic and heterotrophic microbes daily. The dynamic interplay between viruses and microbes results from an overlap of physiological, ecological, and evolutionary responses: environmental changes trigger host physiological changes, affecting the ecological interactions of host and virus and, ultimately, the evolutionary pressures influencing the two populations. Recent theoretical work studied how the dependence of viral traits on host physiology (viral plasticity) affects the evolutionarily stable host cell size and viral infection time emerging from coevolution. Here, we broaden the scope of the framework to consider any coevolutionary outcome, including potential evolutionary collapses of the system. We used the case study of Escherichia coli and T-like viruses under chemostat conditions, but the framework can be adapted to any microbe-virus system. Oligotrophic conditions led to smaller, lower-quality but more abundant hosts, and infections that were longer but produced a reduced viral offspring. Conversely, eutrophic conditions resulted in fewer but larger higher-quality hosts, and shorter but more productive infections. The virus influenced host evolution decreasing host size more noticeably for low than for high dilution rates, and for high than for low nutrient input concentration. For low dilution rates, the emergent infection time minimized host need/use, but higher dilution led to an opportunistic strategy that shortened the duration of infections. System collapses driven by evolution resulted from host failure to adapt quickly enough to the evolving virus. Our results contribute to understanding the eco-evolutionary dynamics of microbes and virus, and to improving the predictability of current models for host-virus interactions. The large quantitative and qualitative differences observed with respect to a classic description (in which viral traits are assumed to be constant) highlights the importance of including viral plasticity in theories describing short- and long-term host-virus dynamics.

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Impact of Lytic Phages on Phosphorus- vs. Nitrogen-Limited Marine Microbes

Cited by 22 publications

References 61 publications

Evolutionarily Stable Coevolution Between a Plastic Lytic Virus and Its Microbial Host

Evolutionarily Stable Coevolution Between a Plastic Lytic Virus and Its Microbial Host

Phages as a Cohesive Prophylactic and Therapeutic Approach in Aquaculture Systems

Unconstrained coevolution of bacterial size and the latent period of plastic phage

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