Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

Most bacteriophages lyse their host cell to release progeny virions. Double-stranded DNA phages typically promote host lysis using a holin-endolysin system. Holins form pores in the cytoplasmic membra...

Conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution, from populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements in microbes. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-r...

Success of phage therapies is limited by bacterial defenses against phages. While a large variety of anti-phage defense mechanisms has been characterized, how expression of these systems is distribute...