Recipient organisationUniversity of ExeterSource-published name: University of Exeter
Funding£1.7M
PeriodJan 2023 — Dec 2027
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Some viruses that infect bacteria use chemical signals to talk to each other, coordinating whether to kill their host cell immediately or lie dormant inside it. This matters because these viruses—called phages—are the most abundant lifeforms on Earth and shape the behaviour of bacterial communities that govern soil health, ocean nutrient cycles, and even our own gut microbiomes. Until recently, scientists did not know viruses could communicate at all. This project asks how widespread viral communication is, why some phages use different chemical “languages,” and what evolutionary pressures drive these systems to diversify. The work is fundamental science. There is no immediate practical application. But understanding how phages make collective decisions about infection could eventually inform the design of phage therapies—viruses engineered to kill specific bacteria—or help predict how microbial ecosystems respond to environmental change. Past discoveries in phage biology, from CRISPR to DNA replication enzymes, have repeatedly opened unexpected doors in medicine and biotechnology. This project may do the same.
View original technical description
Viruses that infect bacteria (phage) are the most abundant biological entities on this planet, and play fundamental roles in the ecology and evolution of microbial communities and the ecosystem services they provide. Many phages can employ two lifestyles: lytic, where they replicate in infected cells to generate new virions, and lysogenic, where they remain dormant following an infection and wait for a future opportunity to become lytic. Every infection, phages must 'decide' whether to employ the lytic or the lysogenic cycle, but the principles governing this decision are largely unknown. It was recently demonstrated that some phages use molecular communication to coordinate their infection dynamics. Moreover, different phages use different communication molecules, effectively causing them to speak different languages. The discovery that viruses can communicate to make group decisions about their infection strategy has opened an entirely novel paradigm in virology, and raises many pressing questions. How widespread is the ability of viruses to communicate? Why do not all viruses communicate? What drives the diversification of viral communication systems? I will combine theoretical, experimental and observational approaches to address these questions, using Bacillus species in which these phages were identified as a model, but also aiming to identify analogous communication systems in phages that infect other bacterial species. This project will be the first to address the evolutionary ecology of viral communication systems. My team has strong expertise and track-record in studying molecular and evolutionary aspects of bacteria-phage interactions, and is perfectly placed to run this research program. I will spend 40% of my time on this project and will recruit 2 PDRFs and a PhD student to carry out this work, supported by a part-time technician. The work will take place at the University of Exeter, which has state-of-the-art facilities for Microbiology research
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