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Siderophore production and biofilm formation as linked social traits
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Harrison, Freya and Buckling, Angus (2009) Siderophore production and biofilm formation as linked social traits. The ISME Journal, 3 (5). pp. 632-634. doi:10.1038/ismej.2009.9 ISSN 1751-7362.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2009.9
Abstract
The virulence of pathogenic microbes can depend on individual cells cooperating in the concerted production of molecules that facilitate host colonization or exploitation. However, cooperating groups can be exploited by social defectors or ‘cheats’. Understanding the ecology and evolution of cooperation is therefore relevant to clinical microbiology. We studied two genetically linked cooperative traits involved in host exploitation by the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Clones that defected from cooperative production of iron-scavenging siderophores were deficient in biofilm formation. The presence of such clones in mixed biofilms with a wild-type clone led to reduced biofilm mass. The fitness advantage of siderophore-deficient mutants in the presence of wild-type bacteria was no greater in biofilm than in planktonic culture, suggesting that these mutants did not gain an additional advantage by exploiting wild-type biofilm polymer. Reduced biofilm formation therefore represents a pleiotropic cost of defection from siderophore production.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Life Sciences (2010- ) | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | The ISME Journal | ||||||
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group | ||||||
ISSN: | 1751-7362 | ||||||
Official Date: | 2009 | ||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 3 | ||||||
Number: | 5 | ||||||
Page Range: | pp. 632-634 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.1038/ismej.2009.9 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) |
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