ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2016
Source-sink plasmid transfer dynamics maintain gene mobility in soil bacterial communities.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 109 papers.
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109 citing papers in PubMed, 200 citations in OpenAlex.
- Spatial constraints determine the spread of plasmid-encoded antibiotic resistance between bacterial colonies.mSystems · 2026Article
- A fitness advantage from the pLVPK plasmid fuels the global spread of a carbapenem-resistant hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae high-risk clone: ST11-KL64.International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2026Article
- Invasive plasmids as ecosystem engineers-from mechanism to application.Essays in biochemistry · 2026Review
- Modelling the role of the microbiome in antimicrobial resistance across scales.Nature microbiology · 2026Review
- The pQBR mercury resistance plasmids: a model set of sympatric environmental mobile genetic elements.Microbial genomics · 2026Article
- Using auxotrophic donor strains to explore pQBR57 plasmid host range among environmental soil bacterial isolates.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2026Article
- The interplay between ecological networks drives host-plasmid community dynamics.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Horizontal and vertical gene transfer shape the plasmid host range in surface-associated microbial systems.iScience · 2026Article
- Eco-evolutionary responses to plasmid-dependent phage constrain the spread of multidrug-resistance plasmids.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Selective shifts in mobile antibiotic resistance genes under carbamazepine exposure in wastewater microbiomes.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Article
- ProFiT-SPEci-FISH: a novel approach for linking plasmids to hosts in complex microbial communities at the single-cell level.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Dynamical memory underlies prolonged plasmid persistence after transient antibiotic treatment.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Jumbo phage-mediated transduction of genomic islands.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Multi-layered ecological interactions determine growth of clinical antibiotic-resistant strains within human microbiomes.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Bacterial immune systems as causes and consequences of microbiome structure.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Seaweed exposure modulatesMicrobiology (Reading, England) · 2025Article
- Plasmid genomic epidemiology ofMicrobial genomics · 2025Article
- The extended mobility of plasmids.Nucleic acids research · 2025Review
- Loss of phytochromobilin synthase activity leads to larger seeds with higher protein content in soybean.BMC plant biology · 2025Article
49 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Horizontal gene transfer is a fundamental process in bacterial evolution that can accelerate adaptation via the sharing of genes between lineages. Conjugative plasmids are the principal genetic elements mediating the horizontal transfer of genes, both within and between bacterial species. In some species, plasmids are unstable and likely to be lost through purifying selection, but when alternative hosts are available, interspecific plasmid transfer could counteract this and maintain access to plasmid-borne genes. To investigate the evolutionary importance of alternative hosts to plasmid population dynamics in an ecologically relevant environment, we established simple soil microcosm communities comprising two species of common soil bacteria, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Pseudomonas putida, and a mercury resistance (Hg(R)) plasmid, pQBR57, both with and without positive selection [i.e., addition of Hg(II)]. In single-species populations, plasmid stability varied between species: although pQBR57 survived both with and without positive selection in P. fluorescens, it was lost or replaced by nontransferable Hg(R) captured to the chromosome in P. putida A simple mathematical model suggests these differences were likely due to pQBR57's lower intraspecific conjugation rate in P. putida By contrast, in two-species communities, both models and experiments show that interspecific conjugation from P. fluorescens allowed pQBR57 to persist in P. putida via source-sink transfer dynamics. Moreover, the replacement of pQBR57 by nontransferable chromosomal Hg(R) in P. putida was slowed in coculture. Interspecific transfer allows plasmid survival in host species unable to sustain the plasmid in monoculture, promoting community-wide access to the plasmid-borne accessory gene pool and thus potentiating future evolvability.
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