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Effects of bacteriophage traits on plaque formation

BACKGROUND: The appearance of plaques on a bacterial lawn is one of the enduring imageries in modern day biology. The seeming simplicity of a plaque has invited many hypotheses and models in trying to describe and explain the details of its formation. However, until now, there has been no systematic...

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Autores principales: Gallet, Romain, Kannoly, Sherin, Wang, Ing-Nang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3176204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21827665
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-11-181
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author Gallet, Romain
Kannoly, Sherin
Wang, Ing-Nang
author_facet Gallet, Romain
Kannoly, Sherin
Wang, Ing-Nang
author_sort Gallet, Romain
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The appearance of plaques on a bacterial lawn is one of the enduring imageries in modern day biology. The seeming simplicity of a plaque has invited many hypotheses and models in trying to describe and explain the details of its formation. However, until now, there has been no systematic experimental exploration on how different bacteriophage (phage) traits may influence the formation of a plaque. In this study, we constructed a series of isogenic λ phages that differ in their adsorption rate, lysis timing, or morphology so that we can determine the effects if these changes on three plaque properties: size, progeny productivity, and phage concentration within plaques. RESULTS: We found that the adsorption rate has a diminishing, but negative impact on all three plaque measurements. Interestingly, there exists a concave relationship between the lysis time and plaque size, resulting in an apparent optimal lysis time that maximizes the plaque size. Although suggestive in appearance, we did not detect a significant effect of lysis time on plaque productivity. Nonetheless, the combined effects of plaque size and productivity resulted in an apparent convex relationship between the lysis time and phage concentration within plaques. Lastly, we found that virion morphology also affected plaque size. We compared our results to the available models on plaque size and productivity. For the models in their current forms, a few of them can capture the qualitative aspects of our results, but not consistently in both plaque properties. CONCLUSIONS: By using a collection of isogenic phage strains, we were able to investigate the effects of individual phage traits on plaque size, plaque productivity, and average phage concentration in a plaque while holding all other traits constant. The controlled nature of our study allowed us to test several model predictions on plaque size and plaque productivity. It seems that a more realistic theoretical approach to plaque formation is needed in order to capture the complex interaction between phage and its bacterium host in a spatially restricted environment.
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spelling pubmed-31762042011-09-20 Effects of bacteriophage traits on plaque formation Gallet, Romain Kannoly, Sherin Wang, Ing-Nang BMC Microbiol Research Article BACKGROUND: The appearance of plaques on a bacterial lawn is one of the enduring imageries in modern day biology. The seeming simplicity of a plaque has invited many hypotheses and models in trying to describe and explain the details of its formation. However, until now, there has been no systematic experimental exploration on how different bacteriophage (phage) traits may influence the formation of a plaque. In this study, we constructed a series of isogenic λ phages that differ in their adsorption rate, lysis timing, or morphology so that we can determine the effects if these changes on three plaque properties: size, progeny productivity, and phage concentration within plaques. RESULTS: We found that the adsorption rate has a diminishing, but negative impact on all three plaque measurements. Interestingly, there exists a concave relationship between the lysis time and plaque size, resulting in an apparent optimal lysis time that maximizes the plaque size. Although suggestive in appearance, we did not detect a significant effect of lysis time on plaque productivity. Nonetheless, the combined effects of plaque size and productivity resulted in an apparent convex relationship between the lysis time and phage concentration within plaques. Lastly, we found that virion morphology also affected plaque size. We compared our results to the available models on plaque size and productivity. For the models in their current forms, a few of them can capture the qualitative aspects of our results, but not consistently in both plaque properties. CONCLUSIONS: By using a collection of isogenic phage strains, we were able to investigate the effects of individual phage traits on plaque size, plaque productivity, and average phage concentration in a plaque while holding all other traits constant. The controlled nature of our study allowed us to test several model predictions on plaque size and plaque productivity. It seems that a more realistic theoretical approach to plaque formation is needed in order to capture the complex interaction between phage and its bacterium host in a spatially restricted environment. BioMed Central 2011-08-09 /pmc/articles/PMC3176204/ /pubmed/21827665 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-11-181 Text en Copyright ©2011 Gallet et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Gallet, Romain
Kannoly, Sherin
Wang, Ing-Nang
Effects of bacteriophage traits on plaque formation
title Effects of bacteriophage traits on plaque formation
title_full Effects of bacteriophage traits on plaque formation
title_fullStr Effects of bacteriophage traits on plaque formation
title_full_unstemmed Effects of bacteriophage traits on plaque formation
title_short Effects of bacteriophage traits on plaque formation
title_sort effects of bacteriophage traits on plaque formation
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3176204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21827665
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-11-181
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