Evidence map›Paper›PMID 21873476›Full record

ArticleApplied and environmental microbiology2011

Spontaneous Gac mutants of Pseudomonas biological control strains: cheaters or mutualists?

William W Driscoll, John W Pepper, Leland S Pierson, Elizabeth A Pierson

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Applied and environmental microbiology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
23citing papers in PubMed
1.9field-weighted citation impact, top 14% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

23 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
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  8. Delving into defence: identifying theMicrobial genomics · 2021
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  18. Beyond the Black Queen Hypothesis.The ISME journal · 2016
    Review
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.

William W DriscollDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA.
John W Pepper
Leland S Pierson
Elizabeth A Pierson
Texas A&M University · USSanta Fe Institute · USUniversity of Arizona · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Bacteria rely on a range of extracellular metabolites to suppress competitors, gain access to resources, and exploit plant or animal hosts. The GacS/GacA two-component regulatory system positively controls the expression of many of these beneficial external products in pseudomonad bacteria. Natural populations often contain variants with defective Gac systems that do not produce most external products. These mutants benefit from a decreased metabolic load but do not appear to displace the wild type in nature. How could natural selection maintain the wild type in the presence of a mutant with enhanced growth? One hypothesis is that Gac mutants are "cheaters" that do not contribute to the public good, favored within groups but selected against between groups, as groups containing more mutants lose access to ecologically important external products. An alternative hypothesis is that Gac mutants have a mutualistic interaction with the wild type, so that each variant benefits by the presence of the other. In the biocontrol bacterium Pseudomonas chlororaphis strain 30-84, Gac mutants do not produce phenazines, which suppress competitor growth and are critical for biofilm formation. Here, we test the predictions of these alternative hypotheses by quantifying interactions between the wild type and the phenazine- and biofilm-deficient Gac mutant within growing biofilms. We find evidence that the wild type and Gac mutants interact mutualistically in the biofilm context, whereas a phenazine-defective structural mutant does not. Our results suggest that the persistence of alternative Gac phenotypes may be due to the stabilizing role of local mutualistic interactions.

Indexed as

Genes, RegulatorMutationAnimalsBacterial ProteinsBiofilmsGenetic VariationPhenazinesPseudomonasSelection, GeneticTranscription FactorsBacterial ProteinsGacA protein, BacterialemA protein, bacterialPhenazinesTranscription Factors

Identifiers

PMID21873476
PMCPMC3194857
OpenAlexW2151335582

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.