{"doi":"10.1101/2025.05.06.652435","title":"Flagellotropic bacteriophage selects for evolutionary remodeling of cell motility and chemotaxis in <i>Escherichia coli</i>","abstract":"Abstract Bacteria can evolve resistance to bacteriophage attack via mutations that alter phage receptors on the cell surface. Flagellotropic phages bind to motility-enabling flagella, creating an evolutionary trade-off, since losing flagellar function reduces fitness in many environments. We experimentally evolved Escherichia coli populations under selection by flagellotropic phage 𝜒 (chi), on soft-agar swim plates which favor motility. Whole genome sequencing revealed early emergence of non-motile mutants with disrupted motility-genes, followed by motile mutants with flagellin gene mutations. Swim-plate assays and single-cell tracking showed variable motility effects among resistant mutants, with some faster and others slower than ancestors. Increased tumble bias suggested altered flagellar rotation. Kinase-response in the upstream chemotaxis pathway was also remodeled in 𝜒-resistant mutants. Our findings demonstrate that evolved phage-resistance can cause motility to trade-off or trade-up, revealing diverse evolutionary outcomes under combined selection pressures. Teaser Evolution redesigns bacterial swimming and navigation to escape viruses while maintaining motility in complex environments.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2025,"id":565666,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9591,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1187458,"name":"Austen Theroux","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":984669,"name":"Fotios Avgidis","orcid":"0000-0002-8580-7916","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":699488,"name":"Birgit E. Scharf","orcid":"0000-0001-6271-8972","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275108,"name":"Thierry Emonet","orcid":"0000-0002-6746-6564","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":235790,"name":"Paul E. Turner","orcid":"0000-0003-3490-7498","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":637998,"name":"Jyot D. Antani","orcid":"0000-0002-7402-983X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":44,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:32.546082Z","pmid":"40654869","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":[]}