ArticleNucleic acids research2024
Single-cell evidence for plasmid addiction mediated by toxin-antitoxin systems.
Article in Nucleic acids research, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Acquisition and erosion of toxin-antitoxin systems in bacterial chromosomes.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Jumbo circular extrachromosomal elements of methane-oxidizing archaea with variably extensive metabolic and defense gene repertoires.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Development of a stable low-copy mini F plasmid derivative for evaluating β-lactamase substrate specificity through antimicrobial susceptibility testing.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Attenuated Bacteria-Based Tumor Therapy: Clinical Application Risks, Marketing Approval Restrictions, and Coping Strategies.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- CRISPR-Cas is beneficial in plasmid competition, but limited by competitor toxin-antitoxin activity when horizontally transferred.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- The plasmid-host fitness landscape: a new paradigm for predicting the fate of mobile resistance.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Specific killing and resensitization of pathogenic Escherichia coli strains carrying blaCTX-M-15 β-lactamase using targeted-antibacterial-plasmids (TAPs).Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Beyond plasmid addiction: the role of toxin-antitoxin systems in the selfish behavior of mobile genetic elements.Journal of bacteriology · 2025Review
- Exclusion systems preserve host cell homeostasis and fitness, ensuring successful dissemination of conjugative plasmids and associated resistance genes.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- Genetic determinants of pOXA-48 plasmid maintenance and propagation in Escherichia coli.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Broken beyond repair: TA system ParE toxins mediate effective gyrase inhibition without driving resistance.Journal of bacteriology · 2025Article
- Naturally competent bacteria and their genetic parasites-a battle for control over horizontal gene transfer?FEMS microbiology reviews · 2025Review
- The HicAB System: Characteristics and Biological Roles of an Underappreciated Toxin-Antitoxin System.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Application of plasmid stabilization systems for heterologous protein expression in Escherichia coli.Molecular biology reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Disentangling the pseudoknots of toxin translation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- An RNA pseudoknot mediates toxin translation and antitoxin inhibition.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Isolation and characterization of a phage collection against Pseudomonas putida.Environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Toxin-antitoxin genes are differentially expressed inFrontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
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 at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are small selfish genetic modules that increase vertical stability of their replicons. They have long been thought to stabilize plasmids by killing cells that fail to inherit a plasmid copy through a phenomenon called post-segregational killing (PSK) or addiction. While this model has been widely accepted, no direct observation of PSK was reported in the literature. Here, we devised a system that enables visualization of plasmid loss and PSK at the single-cell level using meganuclease-driven plasmid curing. Using the ccd system, we show that cells deprived of a ccd-encoding plasmid show hallmarks of DNA damage, i.e. filamentation and induction of the SOS response. Activation of ccd triggered cell death in most plasmid-free segregants, although some intoxicated cells were able to resume growth, showing that PSK-induced damage can be repaired in a SOS-dependent manner. Damage induced by ccd activates resident lambdoid prophages, which potentiate the killing effect of ccd. The loss of a model plasmid containing TA systems encoding toxins presenting various molecular mechanisms induced different morphological changes, growth arrest and loss of viability. Our experimental setup enables further studies of TA-induced phenotypes and suggests that PSK is a general mechanism for plasmid stabilization by TA systems.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.