Co-evolution of gene transfer agents and their alphaproteobacterial hosts.

ABSTRACT: Gene transfer agents (GTAs) are enigmatic elements that resemble small viruses and are known to be produced during nutritional stress by some bacteria and archaea. The production of GTAs is regulated by quorum sensing, under which a small fraction of the population acts as GTA producers, while the rest becomes GTA recipients. In contrast to canonical viruses, GTAs cannot propagate themselves because they package pieces of the producing cell's genome. In alphaproteobacteria, GTAs are mostly vertically inherited and reside in their hosts' genomes for hundreds of millions of years. While GTAs' ability to transfer genetic material within a population and their long-term preservation suggest an increased fitness of GTA-producing microbes, the associated benefits and type of selection that maint

SUBMITTER: Kogay R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10883770 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature