Imperial researchers have discovered how ‘pirate phages’ hijack other viruses to break into bacteria, sharing new genetic material for dangerous traits.

This discovery that could be harnessed to tackle #AMR

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www.imperial.ac.uk/news/268213/...

Finally, we demonstrated evolutionary homology between cf-PICI and phage HK97 capsids, while showing that cf-PICIs avoid interference during capsid assembly through finely tuned interactions, thereby ensuring efficient and specific packaging of their own DNA. @jonaszpatkowski.bsky.social

In addition, we identified adaptor and connector genes as central to capsid–tail chimeric assembly, with high variability during the evolution of tail-less capsids.

This uncovers unexpected complexity in phage–satellite interactions, challenging the long-held view that satellites rely on a single helper phage to complete their lifecycle.

We revealed a key feature of tail piracy: cf-PICIs can exploit multiple helper phages—one inducing their cycle, another supplying tails. Remarkably, cf-PICIs can even accumulate tail-less particles without helper phage induction, and factors causing cell lysis can release them.

We discovered a new horizontal gene transfer mechanism: tail-less cf-PICIs hijack free phage tails extracellularly, forming infectious chimeric virions that drive both intra- and inter-species transfer among bacteria. @jonaszpatkowski.bsky.social @tcostalab.bsky.social @jrpenades.bsky.social

Thrilled to share our two latest papers with the @tcostalab.bsky.social
lab! In the first, we uncover a new mechanism of satellite transfer: cf-PICIs hijack tails from diverse phages to spread across species.
@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Our second paper with @tcostalab.bsky.social and GoogleDeepMind
reports our experience with Google’s co-scientist: remarkably, the AI independently recapitulated our experimental discovery on cf-PICIs, showcasing AI’s potential to accelerate biology.
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...