Are the viruses communicated?

Authors

  • Juan J Borrego Spain

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24310/enbio.v12i168.17471

Keywords:

Arbitrium system, bacteriophages, communications, lysogenic cycle

Abstract

In 2017, several israeli virologists have demonstrated that bacterium-targeting virases, known as bacteriophages or phages, showed a collaborative aspect to a developmental decision-making process. In this case, intercellular communication occurs through the use of a viral peptide, named arbitrium and, in addition, two gene-products are involved, an intracellular-receptor and a negative regulator. The arbitrium system provides an elegant mechanism for a phage particle to estimate the amount of recent previous infections and hence decide whether to employ the lytic or lysogenic cycle. Intercellular molecular communication between viruses had not been observed before, and the study described here illuminates a previously unknown mechanism of viral action.

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References

Lwoff, A. (1966). The prophage and me. In Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA.
Davidson A.R (2017). Phages make a group decision. Nature, 541: 466-467.
Erez, Z., Steinberger-Levy, I., Shamir, M. y otros (2017). Com- munication between viruses guides lysis-lysogeny decisions. Na- ture, 541: 488-493.

Published

2019-09-20

How to Cite

Borrego, J. J. (2019). Are the viruses communicated? . Encuentros En La Biología, 12(168), 6–7. https://doi.org/10.24310/enbio.v12i168.17471

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Section

Artículos