Fig. 2: Plasmid fitness ranking from pairwise competitions.

a Results of pairwise competitions between different pCONc and pCONn plasmid variants. Each dot corresponds to the proportion of homoplasmic hosts carrying a given plasmid variant in an individual head-to-head competition, while the mean frequency is indicated by the circle. Error bars show the standard deviation. Proportion of cell types, including heteroplasmic and plasmid-free cells, are presented in Supplementary Fig. S2) b Ranking of plasmid stability determinants, denoted by inequality symbols, derived from pairwise competitions of pCONn variants (rows) against pCONc variants (columns). The table cells indicate the superior competing variant having a significantly higher proportion of homoplasmic hosts at the end of the experiment. P-values below using two-sided paired sign test, n = 25 in all pairs of variants, except of pCONn-U vs. pCONc-PT (n = 24) and pCONn-S vs. pCONc-PT (n = 20). ns stands for not-significant (using α = 0.05). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.