477: Hijackers Hitchhike on Hyphal Highways

This episode: Bacteriophages can hitch a ride on bacteria they
don't infect to travel through soil on fungal filaments,
potentially helping their carriers by infecting and killing their
competitors!


Download Episode (7.1 MB, 10.3 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Epinotia aporema granulovirus


News item


Takeaways





For tiny bacteria, partially dry soil can be like a vast
system of caverns, with particles of soil separated by
air-filled spaces much bigger than individual bacteria. Not
all bacteria can swim through liquid, and those that can’t
simply try to thrive as best they can wherever they may be.
But for those that can swim, fungi and other filamentous
organisms can form bridges between soil particles that
motile bacteria can swim across, reaching new places.

In this study, phages were found to hitch a ride on
bacteria they don’t normally infect, crossing fungus-like
filaments to new places and infecting the bacteria they
find there. The bacteria carrying them can also benefit
from this interaction, since the phages help the carrier
bacteria compete and establish a colony in the new
location.


 
Journal Paper:
You X, Kallies R, Kühn I, Schmidt M, Harms H, Chatzinotas A,
Wick LY. 2022. Phage co-transport with hyphal-riding bacteria
fuels bacterial invasion in a water-unsaturated microbial
model system. 5. ISME J 16:1275–1283.

 


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Fungus species discovered in spacecraft assembly
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Oral microbes uniquely influence immune system
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