English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Microbes often engage in cooperation through releasing biosynthetic compounds required by other species to grow. Given that production of costly biosynthetic metabolites is generally subjected to multiple layers of negative feedback, single mutations may frequently be insufficient to generate cooperative phenotypes. Synergistic epistatic interactions between multiple coordinated changes may thus often underlie the evolution of cooperation through overproduction of metabolites. To test the importance of synergistic mutations in cooperation we used an engineered bacterial consortium of an  Escherichia coli  methionine auxotroph and  Salmonella enterica .  S .  enterica  relies on carbon by-products from  E .  coli  if lactose is the only carbon source. Directly selecting wild-type  S .  enterica  in an environment that favored cooperation through secretion of methionine only once led to a methionine producer, and this producer both took a long time to emerge and was not very effective at cooperating. On the other hand, when an initial selection for resistance of  S .  enterica  to a toxic methionine analog, ethionine, was used, subsequent selection for cooperation with  E .  coli  was rapid, and the resulting double mutants were much more effective at cooperation. We found that potentiating mutations in  metJ  increase expression of  metA , which encodes the first step of methionine biosynthesis. This increase in expression is required for the previously identified actualizing mutations in  metA  to generate cooperation. This work highlights that where biosynthesis of metabolites involves multiple layers of regulation, significant secretion of those metabolites may require multiple mutations, thereby constraining the evolution of cooperation.

Identification of the potentiating mutations and synergistic epistasis that enabled the evolution of inter-species cooperation