{"doi":"10.1128/mbio.00053-23","title":"Stay or Go: Sulfolobales Biofilm Dispersal Is Dependent on a Bifunctional VapB Antitoxin","abstract":"Biofilms allow microbes to resist a multitude of stresses and stay proximate to vital nutrients. The mechanisms of entering and leaving a biofilm are highly regulated to ensure microbial survival, but are not yet well described in archaea. Here, a VapBC type II toxin-antitoxin system in the thermoacidophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius was shown to control biofilm dispersal through a multifaceted regulation of the archaeal motility structure, the archaellum. The VapC14 toxin degrades an RNA that causes an increase in archaella and swimming. The VapB14 antitoxin decreases archaella and biofilm dispersal by binding the VapC14 toxin and neutralizing its activity, while also repressing the archaellum genes. VapB14-like antitoxins are highly conserved across the Sulfolobales and respond similarly to biofilm growth. In fact, VapB14-like antitoxins are also found in other archaea, and even in bacteria, indicating an evolutionary pressure to maintain this protein and its role in biofilm formation.","journal":"mBio","year":2023,"id":357024,"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":15,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.952,"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":319728,"name":"Daniel J. Willard","orcid":"0000-0001-9028-8973","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1106113,"name":"Mohamad J. H. Manesh","orcid":"0000-0003-2173-3046","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1106114,"name":"Shamphavi Sivabalasarma","orcid":"0000-0002-2491-8292","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":319732,"name":"Sonja‐Verena Albers","orcid":"0000-0003-2459-2226","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":319733,"name":"Robert M. Kelly","orcid":"0000-0002-0639-3592","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":321729,"name":"April M. Lewis","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":52,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:13:30.556819Z","pmid":"37036347","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":[]}