{"doi":"10.1101/2023.03.19.532758","title":"Diverse and abundant phages exploit conjugative plasmids","abstract":"Phages exert profound evolutionary pressure on bacteria by interacting with receptors on the cell surface to initiate infection. While the majority of phages use chromosomally-encoded cell surface structures as receptors, plasmid-dependent phages exploit plasmid-encoded conjugation proteins, making their host range dependent on horizontal transfer of the plasmid. Despite their unique biology and biotechnological significance, only a small number of plasmid-dependent phages have been characterized. Here we systematically search for new plasmid-dependent phages targeting IncP and IncF plasmids using a targeted discovery platform, and find that they are common and abundant in wastewater, and largely unexplored in terms of their genetic diversity. Plasmid-dependent phages are enriched in non-canonical types of phages, and all but one of the 64 phages we isolated were non-tailed, and members of the lipid-containing tectiviruses, ssDNA filamentous phages or ssRNA phages. We show that plasmid-dependent tectiviruses exhibit profound differences in their host range which is associated with variation in the phage holin protein. Despite their relatively high abundance in wastewater, plasmid-dependent tectiviruses are missed by metaviromic analyses, underscoring the continued importance of culture-based phage discovery. Finally, we identify a tailed phage dependent on the IncF plasmid, and find related structural genes in phages that use the orthogonal type 4 pilus as a receptor, highlighting the promiscuous use of these distinct contractile structures by multiple groups of phages. Taken together, these results indicate plasmid-dependent phages play an under-appreciated evolutionary role in constraining horizontal gene transfer via conjugative plasmids.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2023,"id":390701,"datarank":0.3453877639491069,"base_score":2.302585092994046,"endowment":2.302585092994046,"self_citation_contribution":0.3453877639491069,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.3453877639491069,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":9,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9533,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":555889,"name":"Siân V. Owen","orcid":"0000-0001-5330-3177","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1162495,"name":"Lucy M. McCully","orcid":"0000-0002-4743-7758","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":3673,"name":"Maximillian G. Marin","orcid":"0000-0002-9108-3328","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":455090,"name":"Eleanor A. Rand","orcid":"0000-0003-0775-2064","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1162496,"name":"Alice C. Fan","orcid":"0000-0001-6437-4755","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1162963,"name":"Oluremi J. Martins Dosumu","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1162964,"name":"Kay Paul","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1162965,"name":"Cleotilde E. Sanchez Castaño","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1162497,"name":"Rachel Petherbridge","orcid":"0000-0002-3236-5587","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":876431,"name":"Jillian S. Paull","orcid":"0000-0001-6624-3919","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":276820,"name":"Michael Baym","orcid":"0000-0003-1303-5598","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":89646,"name":"Natalia Quinones-Olvera","orcid":"0000-0002-4612-6819","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":106,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:18:37.743462Z","pmid":"36993299","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}