Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Other Microbiology
Addictive manipulation: a perspective on the role of reproductive parasitism in the evolution of bacteria-eukaryote symbioses
Published: 2024-04-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Other Microbiology
Wolbachia bacteria encompass noteworthy reproductive manipulators of their arthropod hosts. which influence host reproduction to favour their own transmission, also exploiting toxin-antitoxin systems. Recently, multiple other bacterial symbionts of arthropods have been shown to display comparable manipulative capabilities. Here we wonder whether such phenomena are truly restricted to arthropod [...]
Environmental insults and compensative responses: when microbiome meets cancer
Published: 2023-02-11
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Organismal Biological Physiology, Other Microbiology, Pathogenic Microbiology
Tumor microenvironment has recently been ascribed a new hallmark – the polymorphic microbiome. Accumulating evidence regarding the tissue specific territories of tumor-microbiome have opened new and interesting avenues. A pertinent question is regarding the functional consequence of the meeting of the host-microbiome with cancer. Given microbial communities have predominantly been explored [...]
Gut microbiota repeatability is contingent on temporal scale and age in wild meerkats
Published: 2022-03-29
Subjects: Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Microbiology
Inter-individual differences in gut microbiota composition are hypothesized to generate variation in host fitness – a premise for the evolution of host-gut microbe symbioses. However, recent evidence suggests that gut microbial communities are highly dynamic, challenging the notion that individuals harbour unique and stable gut microbial phenotypes. Leveraging a long-term dataset of wild [...]
Selfish, promiscuous, and sometimes useful: how mobile genetic elements drive horizontal gene transfer in microbial populations
Published: 2021-12-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Microbiology
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) drives microbial adaptation but is often under the control of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) whose interests are not necessarily aligned with those of their hosts. In general, transfer is costly to the donor cell while potentially beneficial to the recipients. The diversity and plasticity of cell-MGEs interactions, and those among MGEs, results in complex [...]
Impact of heat stress on the fitness outcomes of symbiotic infection in aphids: a meta-analysis
Published: 2021-11-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Microbiology
Beneficial microorganisms shape the evolutionary trajectories of their hosts, facilitating or constraining the colonization of new ecological niches. One convincing example entails the responses of insect-microbe associations to rising temperatures. Indeed, the insect resilience to stressful high temperatures depends on the genetic identity of the obligate symbiont and the presence of heat [...]
Many defense systems in microbial genomes, but which is defending whom from what?
Published: 2021-09-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Microbiology
Prokaryotes have numerous mobile genetic elements (MGE) that mediate horizontal gene transfer between cells. These elements can be costly, even deadly, and cells use numerous defense systems to filter, control or inactivate them. Surprisingly, many phages, conjugative plasmids, and their parasites, phage satellites or mobilizable plasmids, encode defense systems homologous to those of bacteria. [...]