ArticleNature ecology & evolution2023
Community composition and the environment modulate the population dynamics of type VI secretion in human gut bacteria.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- The type VI secretion system governs strain maintenance in a wild mammalian gut microbiome.eLife · 2026Article
- Functional diversity of accessory factors of the type VI secretion system.Journal of bacteriology · 2026Review
- Oral Actinobacteria sense and defend against parasitic epibionts.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Bacterial weaponry and the ecological factors of competitive success.Essays in biochemistry · 2026Review
- Implications of proteome allocation constraints for understanding interbacterial antagonism.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2026Review
- Simulating the host niche: balancing complexity and control in the experimental evolution of antibiotic resistance and pathoadaptation.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2026Review
- Comparative genomic analysis ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Phenotypic heterogeneity optimizes trade-offs during adaptive deployment of the type VI secretion system.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Plasmids serve as vehicles and reservoirs of type VI secretion systems.ISME communications · 2026Article
- A Review of Global Patterns in Gut Microbiota Composition, Health and Disease: Locating South Africa in the Conversation.Microorganisms · 2025Review
- Interbacterial warfare in the human gut: insights from Bacteroidales' perspective.Gut microbes · 2025Review
- A widely-occurring family of pore-forming effectors broadens the impact of the Serratia Type VI secretion system.The EMBO journal · 2025Article
- Using stochastic cellular automata to model and define sufficient conditions for the survival of Enterococcus faecalis biofilms with the pCF10 plasmid under erythromycin treatment.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Functional replacement of ancestral antibacterial secretion system in a bacterial plant pathogen.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Rapidly evolving orphan immunity genes protect human gut bacteria from intoxication by the type VI secretion system.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Decoding resistance in the age of T6SS warfare.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Competitive behaviors in Serratia marcescens are coordinately regulated by a lifestyle switch frequently inactivated in the clinical environment.Cell host & microbe · 2025Article
- Proteogenomic annotation of T6SS components identified inFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- A highly conserved SusCD transporter determines the import and species-specific antagonism of Bacteroides ubiquitin homologues.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Use of zebrafish to identify host responses specific to type VI secretion system mediated interbacterial antagonism.PLoS pathogens · 2024Article
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10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Understanding the relationship between the composition of the human gut microbiota and the ecological forces shaping it is of great importance; however, knowledge of the biogeographical and ecological relationships between physically interacting taxa is limited. Interbacterial antagonism may play an important role in gut community dynamics, yet the conditions under which antagonistic behaviour is favoured or disfavoured by selection in the gut are not well understood. Here, using genomics, we show that a species-specific type VI secretion system (T6SS) repeatedly acquires inactivating mutations in Bacteroides fragilis in the human gut. This result implies a fitness cost to the T6SS, but we could not identify laboratory conditions under which such a cost manifests. Strikingly, experiments in mice illustrate that the T6SS can be favoured or disfavoured in the gut depending on the strains and species in the surrounding community and their susceptibility to T6SS antagonism. We use ecological modelling to explore the conditions that could underlie these results and find that community spatial structure modulates interaction patterns among bacteria, thereby modulating the costs and benefits of T6SS activity. Our findings point towards new integrative models for interrogating the evolutionary dynamics of type VI secretion and other modes of antagonistic interaction in microbiomes.
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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.