Phage-encoded contingency loci enable bet-hedging against host defence mechanisms.

doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02445-w

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Article

Phage-encoded contingency loci enable bet-hedging against host defence mechanisms.

Nature microbiology - 1 Sept 2026

Gomez Jasper B, Barrick Jeffrey E, Waters Christopher M

Abstract excerpt

Bacteriophages are the most diverse biological entities on Earth, but the processes influencing the evolution of genomic diversity in phages are poorly understood. Here, we show that phage genomes contain contingency loci, hypermutable DNA regions that promote reversible frameshift mutations through DNA polymerase slippage on simple sequence repeats. Contingency loci have been extensively described in bacteria,...

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PMID: 42595816
DOI: 10.1038/s41564-026-02445-w

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PubMed metadata and Literature Corpus relationships. Corpus snapshot updated 7 Sept 2026.

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