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The persistence potential of transferable plasmids.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Wang, T; You, L
Published in: Nature communications
November 2020

Conjugative plasmids can mediate the spread and maintenance of diverse traits and functions in microbial communities. This role depends on the plasmid's ability to persist in a population. However, for a community consisting of multiple populations transferring multiple plasmids, the conditions underlying plasmid persistence are poorly understood. Here, we describe a plasmid-centric framework that makes it computationally feasible to analyze gene flow in complex communities. Using this framework, we derive the 'persistence potential': a general, heuristic metric that predicts the persistence and abundance of any plasmids. We validate the metric with engineered microbial consortia transferring mobilizable plasmids and with quantitative data available in the literature. We believe that our framework and the resulting metric will facilitate a quantitative understanding of natural microbial communities and the engineering of microbial consortia.

Duke Scholars

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Published In

Nature communications

DOI

EISSN

2041-1723

ISSN

2041-1723

Publication Date

November 2020

Volume

11

Issue

1

Start / End Page

5589

Related Subject Headings

  • Plasmids
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Microbiota
  • Gene Flow
  • Escherichia coli
  • Conjugation, Genetic
  • Computational Biology
 

Citation

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Wang, T., & You, L. (2020). The persistence potential of transferable plasmids. Nature Communications, 11(1), 5589. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19368-7
Wang, Teng, and Lingchong You. “The persistence potential of transferable plasmids.Nature Communications 11, no. 1 (November 2020): 5589. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19368-7.
Wang T, You L. The persistence potential of transferable plasmids. Nature communications. 2020 Nov;11(1):5589.
Wang, Teng, and Lingchong You. “The persistence potential of transferable plasmids.Nature Communications, vol. 11, no. 1, Nov. 2020, p. 5589. Epmc, doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19368-7.
Wang T, You L. The persistence potential of transferable plasmids. Nature communications. 2020 Nov;11(1):5589.

Published In

Nature communications

DOI

EISSN

2041-1723

ISSN

2041-1723

Publication Date

November 2020

Volume

11

Issue

1

Start / End Page

5589

Related Subject Headings

  • Plasmids
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Microbiota
  • Gene Flow
  • Escherichia coli
  • Conjugation, Genetic
  • Computational Biology