Journal article
The evolution of short- and long-range weapons for bacterial competition
- Abstract:
- Bacteria possess a diverse range of mechanisms for inhibiting competitors, including bacteriocins, tailocins, type VI secretion systems and contact-dependent inhibition (CDI). Why bacteria have evolved such a wide array of weapon systems remains a mystery. Here we develop an agent-based model to compare short-range weapons that require cell-cell contact, with long-range weapons that rely on diffusion. Our model predicts that contact weapons are useful when an attacking strain is outnumbered, facilitating invasion and establishment. By contrast, ranged weapons tend to be effective only when attackers are abundant. We test our predictions with the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which naturally carries multiple weapons, including CDI and diffusing tailocins. As predicted, short-range CDI can function at low and high frequencies, while long-range tailocins require high frequency and cell density to function effectively. Head-to-head competition experiments with the two weapon types further support our predictions: a tailocin attacker defeats CDI only when it is numerically dominant, but then we find it can be devastating. Finally, we show that the two weapons work well together when one strain employs both. We conclude that short- and long-range weapons serve different functions and allow bacteria to fight both as individuals and as a group.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 18.5MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41559-023-02234-2
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature Ecology and Evolution More from this journal
- Volume:
- 7
- Issue:
- 12
- Pages:
- 2080–2091
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2023-11-30
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-09-22
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2397-334X
- ISSN:
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2397-334X
- Pmid:
-
38036633
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1574538
- Local pid:
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pubs:1574538
- Deposit date:
-
2023-12-12
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Booth et al
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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