Microbes produce a variety of compounds that are used to kill or suppress other species. Traditional antibiotics have their origins in these natural products, as do many types of compounds being pursued today in the quest for new antibacterial drugs. When a potential toxin can be encoded by and exported from a species that is not harmed, the opportunity exists to use directed evolution to improve the toxin's ability to kill other species-allelopathy. In contrast to the typical application of directed evolution, this case requires the co-culture of at least two species or strains, a host that is unharmed by the toxin plus the intended target of the toxin. We develop mathematical and computational models of this directed evolution process. Two contexts are considered, one with the toxin encoded on a plasmid and the other with the toxin encoded in a phage. The plasmid system appears to be more promising than the phage system. Crucial to both designs is the ability to co-culture two species/strains (host and target) such that the host is greatly outgrown by the target species except when the target species is killed. The results suggest that, if these initial conditions can be satisfied, directed evolution is feasible for the plasmid-based system. Screening with a plasmid-based system may also enable rapid improvement of a toxin.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 April 2015.
All research outputs
#6,381,849
of 23,340,595 outputs
Outputs from PeerJ
#5,271
of 13,661 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#74,424
of 266,015 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PeerJ
#112
of 181 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,340,595 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 13,661 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 61% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 266,015 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 181 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 38th percentile – i.e., 38% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
