Horizontal gene transfer is an important evolutionary force, facilitating bacterial diversity. It is
thought to be pervasive in host-associated microbiomes, where bacterial densities are high …

Social interactions among viruses occur whenever multiple viral genomes infect the same
cells, hosts, or populations of hosts. Viral social interactions range from cooperation to …

It has become clear in recent years that anti-phage defense systems cluster non-randomly
within bacterial genomes in so-called “defense islands”. Despite serving as a valuable tool …

Phage satellites are bacterial genetic elements that co-opt phage machinery for their own
dissemination. Here we identify a family of satellites, named Phage-Inducible Chromosomal …

Bacteria have evolved diverse antiviral defence mechanisms to protect themselves against
phage infection. Phages integrated into bacterial chromosomes, known as prophages, also …

Satellites are mobile genetic elements that are dependent upon the replication machinery of
their helper viruses. Bacteriophages have provided many examples of satellite nucleic acids …

Lateral transduction (LT) is the process by which temperate phages mobilize large sections
of bacterial genomes. Despite its importance, LT has only been observed during prophage …

Phage satellites are genetic elements that couple their life cycle to that of helper phages
they parasitize, interfering with phage packaging through the production of small capsids …

Highlights•ARGs and MGEs are vertically trasferred from mothers to their offspring.•Antibiotic
exposure, C-section and lack of breastfeeding are risk factors for acquiring ARGs and …

Phage satellites commonly remodel capsids they hijack from the phages they parasitize, but
only a few mechanisms regulating the change in capsid size have been reported. Here, we …