ArticlePLoS biology2022
Microbial defenses against mobile genetic elements and viruses: Who defends whom from what?
Article in PLoS biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 125 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
125 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Systematic Discovery of a New Catalogue of Tyrosine-Type Integrases in Bacterial Genomic Islands.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2023Pooled it
- Revisiting the life cycle of temperate phages.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Characterization of defensome genes and mobile genetic Elements in different types of pasture soil agroecosystems from the Brazilian Amazon.International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2026Article
- Surviving phage attack primes bacterial immunity to defeat counterdefenses.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The leading region of many plasmids is adapted for translational efficiency.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- 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
- Ecological theory sheds light on plasmid diversity and dynamics.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Genetic determinants of disinfectant and antibiotic resistance, and virulence factors in Enterococcus faecalis isolated from a pasteurized crab canning environment.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2026Article
- The pQBR mercury resistance plasmids: a model set of sympatric environmental mobile genetic elements.Microbial genomics · 2026Article
- Unveiling Marine Vesicle Uptake in Vibrio spp: Taxonomic and Environmental Insights.MicrobiologyOpen · 2026Article
- Deciphering the pangenome of the shellfish pathogenMicrobial genomics · 2026Article
- The interplay between ecological networks drives host-plasmid community dynamics.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Mobile Genetic Elements as Central Drivers of Antimicrobial Resistance: Molecular Mechanisms, Evolutionary Ecology, One Health Implications and Control Strategies.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Molecular kinetics dictate population dynamics in CRISPR-based plasmid defense.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Article
- Tmn blocks phage spread via plasmolysis and triggers synergistic defence responses.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Plug-and-play evolution of the Klebsiella pneumoniae capsule locus enables serotype exchange across genetic backgrounds.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Diversity and evolution of archaeal immune strategies.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
65 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
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Prokaryotes have numerous mobile genetic elements (MGEs) that mediate horizontal gene transfer (HGT) between cells. These elements can be costly, even deadly, and cells use numerous defense systems to filter, control, or inactivate them. Recent studies have shown that prophages, conjugative elements, their parasites (phage satellites and mobilizable elements), and other poorly described MGEs encode defense systems homologous to those of bacteria. These constitute a significant fraction of the repertoire of cellular defense genes. As components of MGEs, these defense systems have presumably evolved to provide them, not the cell, adaptive functions. While the interests of the host and MGEs are aligned when they face a common threat such as an infection by a virulent phage, defensive functions carried by MGEs might also play more selfish roles to fend off other antagonistic MGEs or to ensure their maintenance in the cell. MGEs are eventually lost from the surviving host genomes by mutational processes and their defense systems can be co-opted when they provide an advantage to the cell. The abundance of defense systems in MGEs thus sheds new light on the role, effect, and fate of the so-called "cellular defense systems," whereby they are not only merely microbial defensive weapons in a 2-partner arms race, but also tools of intragenomic conflict between multiple genetic elements with divergent interests that shape cell fate and gene flow at the population level.
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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.