Mobile integrons encode phage defense systems
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Integrons are bacterial genetic elements that capture, stockpile, and modulate the expression of genes encoded in integron cassettes. Mobile integrons (MIs) are borne on plasmids, acting as a vehicle for hundreds of antimicrobial resistance genes among key pathogens. These elements also carry gene cassettes of unknown function ( gcu s) whose role and adaptive value remain unexplored. In this work, we show that gcu s encode phage resistance systems, many of which are newly discovered. Bacteriophage resistance integron cassettes (BRiCs) can be combined and mixed with resistance cassettes to produce multiphage or drug and phage resistance. The fitness costs of BRiCs are variable and dependent on the genetic context and can be modulated by changing the order of cassettes in the array. Hence, MIs act as highly mobile, low-cost defense islands.
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Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
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ColabFold - Making protein folding accessible to all
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Fast and accurate protein structure search with Foldseek
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Fast and accurate protein structure search with Foldseek
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- Authors
- Kieffer, N., Hipólito, A., Ortiz-Miravalles, L., Blanco, P., Delobelle, T., Vizuete, P., Ojeda, F. M., Jové, T., Jurenas, D., García-Quintanilla, M., Carvalho, A., Domingo-Calap, P., & Escudero, J. A.
- Affiliations
- Universidad Complutense de Madrid (ES)
- Université Libre de Bruxelles (BE)
- Inserm (FR)
- Laboratoire de Génétique et Physiologie Bactérienne, Faculté de Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Gosselies, Belgium.
- Departamento de Microbiología, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Madrid, Spain.
- Instituto de Biología Integrativa de Sistemas, Universitat de València-CSIC, Paterna, Spain.
- Corresponding author
- Escudero, José Antonio
- ORCID
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2025-05-08
- Volume
- 388
- Issue
- 6747
- Pages
- eads0915-eads0915
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W4410251320
- Cited by
- 40
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 17
- FWCI
- 21.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- European Commission (847635)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Bacteriophages and microbial interactions
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Medicine › Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology
- Keywords
- plasmids, antimicrobial resistance genes, gene cassettes, fitness cost
- MeSH terms
- Bacteriophages, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Plasmids, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Gene Library, Drug Resistance, Bacterial, Integrons
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