SoCoBio PhD student Daniela Rothschild-Rodriguez is happy to share her recent publication where together with internal and external colleagues, they reviewed the current stand of the underappreciated mobile genetic elements, Phage-plasmids (P-Ps).

P-Ps are both a type of plasmid and a type of phage that evolved to become a unique element sharing characteristics of both plasmids and phages. While P-Ps have been known for several decades, they were only recently termed as phage-plasmids and little is known about their general ecology. The review summarises their known characteristics, groupings, their maintenance within their bacterial hosts, their roles in horizontal gene transfer and their known environmental distribution. It finally closes on gaps and future prospects for this emerging field of study.

Read the publication here: DOI: 10.1042/EBC20240014

Figure 1 | Phage-plasmid (P-P) replication cycle. P-Ps can replicate as both plasmids and as phages (including lytic and lysogenic cycles).
Figure was adapted from the original article.