ArticleNature microbiology2020
Phase-variable capsular polysaccharides and lipoproteins modify bacteriophage susceptibility in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 107 papers.
What it found
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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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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.
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Who cites it
107 citing papers in PubMed, 166 citations in OpenAlex.
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- When phage restriction is not immunity: Immune gates, replication-niche barriers, and assay-limited phenotypes.Engineering microbiology · 2026Article
- Determination of Gene-Level Fitness Contributions Across the Mucin-Utilization Network of Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Distinct Evolutionary Selection Patterns in Temperate and Filamentous Phages of Phocaeicola vulgatus in Health and IBD.Research square · 2026Article
- Capsular Polysaccharide Safeguards a Prophage-Bacterium Symbiosis by Preventing Collateral Attack and Promoting Viral Transmission.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Growth capacity and mortality burden shape microbial persistence under osmotic stress inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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- TPMM: three-component posterior mixture model enables robust inverton detection in low-depth metagenomes and suggests potential viral invertons.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Phage host range: determinants, dynamics and applications.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- A phase-variable capsule facilitatesmBio · 2026Article
- Alterations in the fecal virome and bacteriome-virome interplay in IPAH.Respiratory research · 2026Article
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- Assembly, architecture and functional roles of microbial surface layers.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
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- Dual membrane-spanning anti-sigma 2 controls OMV biogenesis and colonization fitness inJournal of bacteriology · 2026Article
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- Strain Diversity in the Human Microbiome: Personal Variation, Pathobionts, Therapeutics, and Methodological Challenges.Microorganisms · 2026Review
- High-resolution phage-host assignment through key proteins using large language models.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Dynamics of phage-host interactions in Bacteroides fragilis resolved by single-cell transcriptomics.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A genetic toolkit for the human gut bacterium Mediterraneibacter gnavus identifies capsular polysaccharides as a competitive colonization factor.Nature communications · 2026Article
47 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
A variety of cell surface structures dictate interactions between bacteria and their environment, including their viruses (bacteriophages). Members of the human gut Bacteroidetes characteristically produce several phase-variable capsular polysaccharides (CPSs), but their contributions to bacteriophage interactions are unknown. To begin to understand how CPSs have an impact on Bacteroides-phage interactions, we isolated 71 Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron-infecting bacteriophages from two locations in the United States. Using B. thetaiotaomicron strains that express defined subsets of CPSs, we show that CPSs dictate host tropism for these phages and that expression of non-permissive CPS variants is selected under phage predation, enabling survival. In the absence of CPSs, B. thetaiotaomicron escapes bacteriophage predation by altering expression of eight distinct phase-variable lipoproteins. When constitutively expressed, one of these lipoproteins promotes resistance to multiple bacteriophages. Our results reveal important roles for Bacteroides CPSs and other cell surface structures that allow these bacteria to persist under bacteriophage predation, and hold important implications for using bacteriophages therapeutically to target gut symbionts.
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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.