Fig. 1: The influence of nblA on S-TIP37 cyanophage infection dynamics.

a, Culture pigmentation phenotypes in uninfected Synechococcus sp. strain WH8109, and in WH8109 6 h after infection with the WT or the ∆nblA mutant S-TIP37 cyanophage. b, Cyanophage growth curves of the WT and ∆nblA mutant cyanophages. PFU, plaque-forming units. c, Changes in the abundances of different functional groups of phage proteins over time after infection with the WT (left) and ∆nblA (right) cyanophages. LFQ, label-free quantification. d, Cyanophage infection dynamics of the WT and ∆nblA mutant phages when infecting the WT host or the host ectopically expressing the cyanophage NblA. e, The apparent photochemical quantum yield of PSII (QY_p) in cells infected with the WT or the ∆nblA cyanophage and in uninfected control cells after excitation of the phycobilisome at 495 nm (absorbance peak of PUB). Infection was performed at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 5. For b, linear regression formulas (Supplementary Data 2) are provided for the three near-linear segments of the cyanophage abundance (normalized to the maximum value) with time for WT (in blue) and ∆nblA (in red) cyanophages alongside the significance levels for the factor ‘infection type’ (type II Wald F-test); NS, not significant; ***false-discovery rate (FDR)-adjusted P < 0.001; exact FDR-adjusted P values for each interval: 0.60 (0–3 h), 2.0 × 10⁻¹⁸ (3–10 h), 8.7 × 10⁻⁵ (10–12 h). For c, genes were grouped into three clusters reflecting dominant gene functions. Linear models were fit for each cluster and a significant contribution of the factor ‘infection type’ (WT or mutant phage) was found only for the morphogenesis genes (analysis of variance (ANOVA) type II F-test, FDR-adjusted P = 7.1 × 10⁻⁸). Further statistical test details are provided in Supplementary Data 2. For b–e, data are mean ± s.d. of n = 3 independent biological experiments.