Single mutations change the Phage resistance profile in the soil bacteria Sinorhizobium meliloti

Students have learned basic microbiology techniques to understand the importance of viruses and their antiviral counterparts present in bacterial genomes. As in previous years, our system of study is a defense-associated reverse transcriptase (DRT) antiviral system (UG5 group) found in the bacteria...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Bonilla A., Pérez-Conde A., Carmona S., Benítez J., Mancilla J.L., López J., Garrido I., Parrado M.A., Sánchez-Nieto, Esperanza, Martínez-Abarca, Francisco
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/418205
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/418205
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Sinorhizobium meliloti
Bacterial conjugation
Defense-associated Reverse
Transcriptases (DRTs)
Nitrilase domain
Phage predation
Descripción
Sumario:Students have learned basic microbiology techniques to understand the importance of viruses and their antiviral counterparts present in bacterial genomes. As in previous years, our system of study is a defense-associated reverse transcriptase (DRT) antiviral system (UG5 group) found in the bacteria Sinorhizobium meliloti. Students demonstrate that single but critical mutations in this DRT system completely change the resistance phenotype against the phage 3.2 of S. meliloti. The presence of the defense system generates a drop of 104 fold of phage title. Mutants either in the RT domain (yvaa 296-7) or Nitrilase domain (c876a) disrupt this function and the phage can replicate. Results obtained exemplified how single mutations can have a dramatic effect on the biology of a bacteria.