ArticleNature microbiology2024
Arbitrium communication controls phage lysogeny through non-lethal modulation of a host toxin-antitoxin defence system.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2024. 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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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Revisiting the life cycle of temperate phages.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Article
- Causes and consequences of bacterial local adaptation via MGEs in the plant microbiome.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Phage infection fronts trigger early sporulation and viral entrapment in bacterial populations.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Temperate phage evolve to integrate host stress and quorum signals in lysis-lysogeny decisions.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Phage-encoded small RNA hijacks host replication machinery to support the phage lytic cycle.Molecular cell · 2025Article
- Review of the Arbitrium (ARM) System: Molecular Mechanisms, Ecological Impacts, and Applications in Phage-Host Communication.Microorganisms · 2025Review
- Lysogenic control of Bacillus subtilis morphology and fitness by Spbetavirus phi3T.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Analysis of co-occurrence of type II toxin-antitoxin systems and antibiotic resistance determinants inmSystems · 2025Article
- A high-resolution view of RNA endonuclease cleavage in Bacillus subtilis.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- Prokaryotic homeostasis - a solution to thrive and survive.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2025Review
- Eco-evolutionary dynamics of temperate phages in periodic environments.Virus evolution · 2025Article
- Conformational change as a mechanism for toxin activation in bacterial toxin-antitoxin systems.Journal of virology · 2024Review
- Phage small proteins play large roles in phage-bacterial interactions.Current opinion in microbiology · 2024Review
- Structural and functional characterization of MrpR, the master repressor of the Bacillus subtilis prophage SPβ.Nucleic acids research · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Temperate Bacillus phages often utilize arbitrium communication to control lysis/lysogeny decisions, but the mechanisms by which this control is exerted remains largely unknown. Here we find that the arbitrium system of Bacillus subtilis phage ϕ3T modulates the host-encoded MazEF toxin-antitoxin system to this aim. Upon infection, the MazF ribonuclease is activated by three phage genes. At low arbitrium signal concentrations, MazF is inactivated by two phage-encoded MazE homologues: the arbitrium-controlled AimX and the later-expressed YosL proteins. At high signal, MazF remains active, promoting lysogeny without harming the bacterial host. MazF cleavage sites are enriched on transcripts of phage lytic genes but absent from the phage repressor in ϕ3T and other Spβ-like phages. Combined with low activation levels of MazF during infections, this pattern explains the phage-specific effect. Our results show how a bacterial toxin-antitoxin system has been co-opted by a phage to control lysis/lysogeny decisions without compromising host viability.
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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.