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Archaeal biology

Plasmid propagation by virus-like particles

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 15, page 577 (2017)Cite this article

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A defining feature that differentiates plasmids from viruses is their mechanism of propagation from cell to cell. Plasmids are transferred from donor to recipient as naked DNA, through cell–cell contact or in unstructured extracellular vesicles. A new study describes a novel mechanism of plasmid dissemination in archaea that uses specialized membrane vesicles similar to a virus. Electron microscopy of Halorubrum lacusprofundi R1S1 revealed virus-like particles (VLPs) budding from the surface of cells. Isolated VLPs were able to infect a plasmid-free H. lacusprofundi strain, resulting in the biogenesis of VLPs. The VLPs contained a ∼50 kb plasmid that encodes proteins that were found to specifically incorporate into the VLPs. The authors hypothesize that these proteins carry out roles similar to vesicle coatamers that drive the assembly of transport vesicles and that this mechanism of DNA transfer may represent an evolutionary link between viruses and plasmids.

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References

  1. Erdmann, S. et al. A plasmid from an Antarctic haloarchaeon uses specialized membrane vesicles to disseminate and infect plasmid-free cells. Nat. Microbiol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41564-017-0009-2 (2017)

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  1. Ashley York
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York, A. Plasmid propagation by virus-like particles. Nat Rev Microbiol 15, 577 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2017.116

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