Phages are typically viewed as very rapidly evolving biological entities. Little is known, however, about whether and how phages can establish long-term genetic stability. We addressed this eco-evolut...

Here, the authors exploit the genetic information encoded in Klebsiella prophages to model the interplay between bacteria, prophages, and their depolymerases, using a directed acyclic graph-model and a sequence clustering-based model.

Biological communities are complex, dynamic systems that underpin ecosystem functionality, yet their long-term dynamics and predictability remain poorly understood. Understanding how Darwinian evoluti...

PhD Project - The genomic basis of symbiotic integration at University of Bath, listed on FindAPhD.com

Find out about and apply for a Bicentenary Early Career Research Fellowship.

Viruses of Microbes UK (VoM-UK) Conference The Virus of Microbes UK (VoM-UK) Conference is hosted by Microbiome Excellence Peak of Excellence at Northumbria University. This two-day conference takes place annually at the end of January/beginning of February and is a chance for researchers to gather and share their knowledge. The VoM-UK conference is designed to […]

Some phages use plasmid-encoded conjugation proteins as receptors to infect their bacterial hosts, making their host range dependent on horizontal transfer of the plasmid. Here, the authors present a method for identification of new plasmid-dependent phages, and find that they are common and abundant in wastewater and their genetic diversity is largely unexplored.

Phage therapy is a promising alternative to antibiotics to treat multidrug resistant infections. Plasmid dependent phages (PDPs) are particularly attractive as therapeutics because they can both kill ...

Here the authors leverage a crossfeeding, engineered microbial community to demonstrate that strain abundance cycles are robust across environmental conditions. They pair this with a nonlinear dynamic model to elucidate population cycles.

Plasmids are now the primary vectors of antimicrobial resistance, but our understanding of how human industrialisation of antibiotics influenced their evolution is limited by a paucity of data predati...

Only a fraction of bacterial genomes encode CRISPR-Cas systems but the selective causes of this variation are unexplained. How naturally virulent bacteriophages (phages) select for CRISPR immunity has...