IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v450y2007i7172d10.1038_nature06350.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coevolution with viruses drives the evolution of bacterial mutation rates

Author

Listed:
  • Csaba Pal

    (University of Oxford
    Institute of Biochemistry, Biological Research Center, Temesvári krt. 62. Szeged, H-6701, Hungary)

  • María D. Maciá

    (Servicio de Microbiologia and Unidad de Investigación, Hospital Son Dureta, Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Ciencias de la Salud (IUNICS), 07014, Palma de Mallorca, Spain)

  • Antonio Oliver

    (Servicio de Microbiologia and Unidad de Investigación, Hospital Son Dureta, Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Ciencias de la Salud (IUNICS), 07014, Palma de Mallorca, Spain)

  • Ira Schachar

    (University of Oxford)

  • Angus Buckling

    (University of Oxford)

Abstract

Driven by competition Bacterial cultures in changing environments sometimes accumulate 'mutator' strains, with elevated mutation rates, presumably to enhance their potential for adaptive evolution. This can often happen in clinical situations. If they are to persist, mutators need a consistently changing environment. Coevolution with parasites, such as viruses, is a scenario that can provide that. Experiments with Pseudomonas fluorescens now show that coevolution with a naturally occurring bacteriophage significantly increases bacterial mutation rates — and results in a higher probability of phage extinction. Targeting phage populations might therefore be a way of weakening selection for mutator bacteria in clinical infections.

Suggested Citation

  • Csaba Pal & María D. Maciá & Antonio Oliver & Ira Schachar & Angus Buckling, 2007. "Coevolution with viruses drives the evolution of bacterial mutation rates," Nature, Nature, vol. 450(7172), pages 1079-1081, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:450:y:2007:i:7172:d:10.1038_nature06350
    DOI: 10.1038/nature06350
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06350
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature06350?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liberman, Uri & Behar, Hilla & Feldman, Marcus W., 2016. "Evolution of reduced mutation under frequency-dependent selection," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 52-59.
    2. Antun Skanata & Edo Kussell, 2021. "Ecological memory preserves phage resistance mechanisms in bacteria," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Greenspoon, Philip B. & Mideo, Nicole, 2017. "Evolutionary rescue of a parasite population by mutation rate evolution," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 64-75.
    4. Baumdicker, Franz & Sester-Huss, Elisabeth & Pfaffelhuber, Peter, 2020. "Modifiers of mutation rate in selectively fluctuating environments," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 130(11), pages 6843-6862.
    5. M’Gonigle, L.K. & Shen, J.J. & Otto, S.P., 2009. "Mutating away from your enemies: The evolution of mutation rate in a host–parasite system," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 75(4), pages 301-311.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:450:y:2007:i:7172:d:10.1038_nature06350. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.