Journal
NPJ BIOFILMS AND MICROBIOMES
Volume 7, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41522-021-00249-w
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Funding
- Villum Foundation [10098, 00028107, 34434]
- Lundbeck Foundation [R250-2017-139]
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Plasmids can be stored in biofilms, allowing them to persist even under non-selective conditions. However, under these conditions, cells carrying plasmids may promote the dispersal of cells without plasmids, turning biofilms into plasmid sinks.
Plasmids facilitate rapid bacterial adaptation by shuttling a wide variety of beneficial traits across microbial communities. However, under non-selective conditions, maintaining a plasmid can be costly to the host cell. Nonetheless, plasmids are ubiquitous in nature where bacteria adopt their dominant mode of life - biofilms. Here, we demonstrate that biofilms can act as spatiotemporal reserves for plasmids, allowing them to persist even under non-selective conditions. However, under these conditions, spatial stratification of plasmid-carrying cells may promote the dispersal of cells without plasmids, and biofilms may thus act as plasmid sinks.
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