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Coevolution of bacteria and their viruses

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Abstract

Coevolution between bacteria and bacteriophages can be characterized as an infinitive constant evolutionary battle (phage-host arm race), which starts during phage adsorption and penetration into host cell, continues during phage replication inside the cells, and remains preserved also during prophage lysogeny. Bacteriophage may exist inside the bacterial cells in four forms with different evolutionary strategies: as a replicating virus during the lytic cycle, in an unstable carrier state termed pseudolysogeny, as a prophage with complete genome during the lysogeny, or as a defective cryptic prophage. Some defensive mechanisms of bacteria and virus countermeasures are characterized, and some evolutionary questions concerning phage–host relationship are discussed.

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Abbreviations

Abi:

Abortive infection systems

cas:

CRISPR-associated genes

CRISPR:

Clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats (prokaryotic immune system)

MTase:

Methyltransferase of RM system

REase:

Restriction endonuclease of RM system

RM:

Restriction-modification system of bacteria

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to Dr. Lionello Bossi from Centre de Génétique Moléculaire, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, and to Dr. Sergey Mashko from Ajimonot-Genetika Research Institute Moscow for valuable information about induction of prophage Mu lysogeny.

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  1. Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Microbiology and Virology, Comenius University, Mlynská dolina B2, 842 15, Bratislava, Slovakia

    František Golais, Jaroslav Hollý & Jana Vítkovská

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  1. František Golais
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  2. Jaroslav Hollý
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Correspondence to František Golais.

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Golais, F., Hollý, J. & Vítkovská, J. Coevolution of bacteria and their viruses. Folia Microbiol 58, 177–186 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-012-0195-5

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