ArticlePLoS biology2024
Hijackers, hitchhikers, or co-drivers? The mysteries of mobilizable genetic elements.
Article in PLoS biology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Conjugative transfer inhibition of IncA and IncC plasmids by SGI1-like elements via relaxosome assembly interference.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Shuttling, swapping, and mixing: the rapid modular evolution of antiviral repertoires in temperate phages and their satellites.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Ecological theory sheds light on plasmid diversity and dynamics.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Chemical inactivation of a bacterial immune system de-domesticates a temperate phage and promotes its spread.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Nested mobile genetic elements mediating antimicrobial resistance genes mobility within and betweeniScience · 2026Article
- Article
- Causes and consequences of bacterial local adaptation via MGEs in the plant microbiome.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Microbial Evolution and Systematics: Archaea and Bacteria.Progress in molecular and subcellular biology · 2026Review
- Jumbo phage-mediated transduction of genomic islands.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Bacterial immune systems as causes and consequences of microbiome structure.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Horizontal gene transfer, segregation loss, and the speed of microbial adaptation.Evolution letters · 2025Article
- Diversity and spread of cytoplasmic incompatibility genes among maternally inherited symbionts.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Unraveling the tempo and mode of horizontal gene transfer in bacteria.Trends in microbiology · 2025Review
- The extended mobility of plasmids.Nucleic acids research · 2025Review
- Genetics, ecology and evolution of phage satellites.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2025Review
- Transposon-plasmid nesting enables fast response to fluctuating environments.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Genomic Analysis of 96Viruses · 2025Article
- Naturally competent bacteria and their genetic parasites-a battle for control over horizontal gene transfer?FEMS microbiology reviews · 2025Review
- Mobile genetic elements: the hidden puppet masters underlying infant gut microbiome assembly?Microbiome research reports · 2025Article
- Biomathematical enzyme kinetics model of prebiotic autocatalytic RNA networks: degenerating parasite-specific hyperparasite catalysts confer parasite resistance and herald the birth of molecular immunity.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
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4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Mobile genetic elements shape microbial gene repertoires and populations. Recent results reveal that many, possibly most, microbial mobile genetic elements require helpers to transfer between genomes, which we refer to as Hitcher Genetic Elements (hitchers or HGEs). They may be a large fraction of pathogenicity and resistance genomic islands, whose mechanisms of transfer have remained enigmatic for decades. Together with their helper elements and their bacterial hosts, hitchers form tripartite networks of interactions that evolve rapidly within a parasitism-mutualism continuum. In this emerging view of microbial genomes as communities of mobile genetic elements many questions arise. Which elements are being moved, by whom, and how? How often are hitchers costly hyper-parasites or beneficial mutualists? What is the evolutionary origin of hitchers? Are there key advantages associated with hitchers' lifestyle that justify their unexpected abundance? And why are hitchers systematically smaller than their helpers? In this essay, we start answering these questions and point ways ahead for understanding the principles, origin, mechanisms, and impact of hitchers in bacterial ecology and evolution.
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