Nutrient limitation determines the fitness of cheaters in bacterial siderophore cooperation.

ABSTRACT: Cooperative behaviors provide a collective benefit, but are considered costly for the individual. Here, we report that these costs vary dramatically in different contexts and have opposing effects on the selection for non-cooperating cheaters. We investigate a prominent example of bacterial cooperation, the secretion of the peptide siderophore pyoverdine by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, under different nutrient-limiting conditions. Using metabolic modeling, we show that pyoverdine incurs a fitness cost only when its building blocks carbon or nitrogen are growth-limiting and are diverted from cellular biomass production. We confirm this result experimentally with a continuous-culture approach. We show that pyoverdine non-producers (cheaters) enjoy a large fitness advantage in co-culture with prod

SUBMITTER: Sexton DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5550491 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature