Constitutive expression of the Type VI Secretion System carries no measurable fitness cost in Vibrio cholerae .

Autor: Zhang C; School of Biological Sciences Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta Georgia USA.; Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta Georgia USA., Datta S; School of Biological Sciences Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta Georgia USA.; Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta Georgia USA., Ratcliff WC; School of Biological Sciences Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta Georgia USA., Hammer BK; School of Biological Sciences Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta Georgia USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Ecology and evolution [Ecol Evol] 2024 Mar 01; Vol. 14 (3), pp. e11081. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Mar 01 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.11081
Abstrakt: The Type VI Secretion System (T6SS) is a widespread and highly effective mechanism of microbial warfare; it confers the ability to efficiently kill susceptible cells within close proximity. Due to its large physical size, complexity, and ballistic basis for intoxication, it has widely been assumed to incur significant growth costs in the absence of improved competitive outcomes. In this study, we precisely examine the fitness costs of constitutive T6SS firing in the bacterium Vibrio cholerae . We find that, contrary to expectations, constitutive expression of the T6SS has a negligible impact on growth, reducing growth fitness by 0.025 ± 0.5% (95% CI) relative to a T6SS- control. Mathematical modeling of microbial populations demonstrates that, due to clonal interference, constitutive expression of the T6SS will often be neutral, with little impact on evolutionary outcomes. Our findings underscore the importance of precisely measuring the fitness costs of microbial social behaviors and help explain the prevalence of the T6SS across Gram-negative bacteria.
Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interests.
(© 2024 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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