ArticleNature ecology & evolution2021
Host diversity slows bacteriophage adaptation by selecting generalists over specialists.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 87 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genetic engineering of cyanophages for harmful cyanobacterial bloom treatment-A mini review.Synthetic and systems biotechnology · 2027Review
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- Elevation-structured viral ecological strategies along glacier-fed rivers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Phage host range: determinants, dynamics and applications.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Host Range Breadth Correlates with Genic Diversity in Honeybee Phages.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Comparison and correlation of in vitro and in vivo approaches for determining Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteriophages activity.BMC microbiology · 2026Article
- A qPCR-Based Screening Platform for Exploratory Assessment of Phage Training Outcomes inViruses · 2026Article
- Eco-evolutionary dynamics of massive, parallel bacteriophage outbreaks in compost communities.Science advances · 2026Article
- Oxidative stress constrains evolution of bacteriophage host-range diversity.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- The antagonistic coevolution between Pseudomonas sivasensis W-6 and the cold-adapted phage VW6S.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2026Article
- Phage cocktails: state-of-the-art technologies and strategies for effective design.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Warming disrupts infection patterns and primarily acceleratesISME communications · 2026Article
- The host range of generalist and specialist phages in capsule-diverse Klebsiella hosts is driven by the evolvability of receptor-binding proteins.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- A Phylogenetic Host-Range Index Reveals Ecological Constraints in Phage Specialisation and Virulence.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Phage and Endolysin Therapy Against Antibiotics Resistant Bacteria: From Bench to Bedside.MedComm · 2025Review
- Amino acid residues in the tail fiber differentiate the host specificity ofJournal of virology · 2025Article
- Phage therapy for Klebsiella pneumoniae: Understanding bacteria-phage interactions for therapeutic innovations.PLoS pathogens · 2025Review
- Factors Affecting Phage-Bacteria Coevolution Dynamics.Viruses · 2025Review
- Review
- Episomal virus maintenance enables bacterial population recovery from infection and promotes virus-bacterial coexistence.The ISME journal · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Most viruses can infect multiple hosts, yet the selective mechanisms that maintain multi-host generalists over single-host specialists remain an open question. Here we propagate populations of the newly identified bacteriophage øJB01 in coculture with many host genotypes and find that while phage can adapt to infect any of the new hosts, increasing the number of hosts slows the rate of adaptation. We quantify trade-offs in the capacity for individual phage to infect different hosts and find that phage from evolved populations with more hosts are more likely to be generalists. Sequencing of evolved phage reveals strong selection and the genetic basis of adaptation, supporting a model that shows how the addition of more potential hosts to a community can select for low-fitness generalists over high-fitness specialists. Our results show how evolution with multiple hosts alters the rate of viral adaptation and provides empirical support for an evolutionary mechanism that promotes generalists over specialists.
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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.