404: Phages Force Food Finding

This episode: Another climate-related story: Cyanobacteria
infected by viruses continue taking up nutrients from their
environment, using it to make more viruses than would otherwise
be possible!


Download Episode (6.3 MB, 9.2 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Microcystis virus Ma-LMM01

News item

Takeaways
Though global warming is a global problem, accurate models for
predicting where things are headed need to incorporate the
activity of even the smallest organisms, if they're numerous
enough. Photosynthesis and other activities of microbes in the
oceans are a big sink for carbon, but cycles of other nutrients
and also viruses can affect the carbon cycle.

In this study, phages infecting photosynthetic ocean bacteria
were able to continue their host's uptake of nitrogen from the
environment even after mostly shutting down the host's own
protein production and growth. This has implications for how
viruses affect carbon cycling by cyanobacteria and how quickly
populations of these bacteria may grow or die off.

Journal Paper:
Waldbauer JR, Coleman ML, Rizzo AI, Campbell KL, Lotus J, Zhang
L. 2019. Nitrogen sourcing during viral infection of marine
cyanobacteria. Proc Natl Acad Sci 116:15590–15595.


Other interesting stories:



Transplants of gut microbes help koalas eat wider range of
food

Skin bacteria can help attract (or repulse) mosquitoes
(paper)




 


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