英国MRC分子细菌学与感染中心José R. Penadés研究组发现，噬菌体得益于调动编码免疫系统的致病性岛来对抗竞争对手。2022年8月18日出版的《细胞》杂志发表了这一最新研究成果。

研究人员证明了一个广泛的致病性岛家族，即噬菌体诱导的染色体岛屿（PICI），携带着令人印象深刻的防御机制，这些机制可以通过辅助噬菌体在基因内和基因间传播。这些防御系统提供了广泛的免疫力，不仅阻止了噬菌体的繁殖，而且还阻止了质粒和非同源PICI的转移。结果表明，噬菌体可以调动PICI编码的免疫系统，用它们来对付其他移动的遗传因子，这些遗传因子与噬菌体竞争相同的细菌宿主。因此，尽管有成本，调动PICI可能对自然界中的噬菌体、PICI和细菌有利。这一结果证明，PICI是控制水平基因转移的重要角色，PICI和噬菌体建立了互利作用，推动了细菌的生态和演化。

据了解，细菌编码了复杂的抗噬菌体系统，这些系统具有多样性和多功能性，并显示出高度的遗传流动性。这种变异性和流动性是如何发生的在很大程度上仍是未知的。

附：英文原文

Title: Bacteriophages benefit from mobilizing pathogenicity islands encoding immune systems against competitors

Author: Alfred Fillol-Salom, Jakob T. Rostl, Adaeze D. Ojiogu, John Chen, Gill Douce, Suzanne Humphrey, José R. Penadés

Issue&Volume: 2022/08/18

Abstract: Bacteria encode sophisticated anti-phage systems that are diverse and versatile anddisplay high genetic mobility. How this variability and mobility occurs remains largelyunknown. Here, we demonstrate that a widespread family of pathogenicity islands, thephage-inducible chromosomal islands (PICIs), carry an impressive arsenal of defensemechanisms, which can be disseminated intra- and inter-generically by helper phages.These defense systems provide broad immunity, blocking not only phage reproduction,but also plasmid and non-cognate PICI transfer. Our results demonstrate that phagescan mobilize PICI-encoded immunity systems to use them against other mobile geneticelements, which compete with the phages for the same bacterial hosts. Therefore, despitethe cost, mobilization of PICIs may be beneficial for phages, PICIs, and bacteriain nature. Our results suggest that PICIs are important players controlling horizontalgene transfer and that PICIs and phages establish mutualistic interactions that drivebacterial ecology and evolution.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.07.014

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00917-5