The evolution of collective restraint: policing and obedience among non-conjugative plasmids.

ABSTRACT: The repression of competition by mechanisms of policing is now recognized as a major force in the maintenance of cooperation. General models on the evolution of policing have focused on the interplay between individual competitiveness and mutual policing, demonstrating a positive relationship between within-group diversity and levels of policing. We expand this perspective by investigating what is possibly the simplest example of reproductive policing: copy number control (CNC) among non-conjugative plasmids, a class of extra-chromosomal vertically transmitted molecular symbionts of bacteria. Through the formulation and analysis of a multi-scale dynamical model, we show that the establishment of stable reproductive restraint among plasmids requires the co-evolution of two fundamental plasm

SUBMITTER: Kentzoglanakis K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3630227 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature