ArticleCurrent biology : CB2019
Origin of a Core Bacterial Gene via Co-option and Detoxification of a Phage Lysin.
Article in Current biology : CB, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- From hijackers to architects: the role of prophages in bacterial genome evolution.Journal of bacteriology · 2026Review
- Imported, not invented, genes prevail amongProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Polymerization and flanking domains of the bactofilin BacA collectively regulate stalk formation in Asticcacaulis biprosthecum.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- De novo gene birth and the conundrum of ORFan genes in bacteria.Genome research · 2025Review
- Origin, Evolution and Diversity of φ29-like Phages-Review and Bioinformatic Analysis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- What's in a Name? An Overview of the Proliferating Nomenclature in the Field of Phage Lysins.Cells · 2023Review
- Module walking using an SH3-like cell-wall-binding domain leads to a new GH184 family of muramidases.Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology · 2023Article
- Acquisition, co-option, and duplication of the rtx toxin system and the emergence of virulence in Kingella.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Crystal structure of the engineered endolysin mtEC340M.Acta crystallographica. Section F, Structural biology communications · 2023Article
- Characterization of a lyticFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Wild-typeFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Recruitment of Mobile Genetic Elements for Diverse Cellular Functions in Prokaryotes.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2022Review
- The Molecular Basis forViruses · 2021Article
- A phage satellite tunes inducing phage gene expression using a domesticated endonuclease to balance inhibition and virion hijacking.Nucleic acids research · 2021Article
- A Division of Labor in the Recruitment and Topological Organization of a Bacterial Morphogenic Complex.Current biology : CB · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Temperate phages constitute a potentially beneficial genetic reservoir for bacterial innovation despite being selfish entities encoding an infection cycle inherently at odds with bacterial fitness. These phages integrate their genomes into the bacterial host during infection, donating new but deleterious genetic material: the phage genome encodes toxic genes, such as lysins, that kill the bacterium during the phage infection cycle. Remarkably, some bacteria have exploited the destructive properties of phage genes for their own benefit by co-opting them as toxins for functions related to bacterial warfare, virulence, and secretion. However, do toxic phage genes ever become raw material for functional innovation? Here, we report on a toxic phage gene whose product has lost its toxicity and has become a domain of a core cellular factor, SpmX, throughout the bacterial order Caulobacterales. Using a combination of phylogenetics, bioinformatics, structural biology, cell biology, and biochemistry, we have investigated the origin and function of SpmX and determined that its occurrence is the result of the detoxification of a phage peptidoglycan hydrolase gene. We show that the retained, attenuated activity of the phage-derived domain plays an important role in proper cell morphology and developmental regulation in representatives of this large bacterial clade. To our knowledge, this is the first observation of a phage gene domestication event in which a toxic phage gene has been co-opted for core cellular function at the root of a large bacterial clade.
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Registered trials
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.