Phollow reveals in situ phage transmission dynamics in the zebrafish gut at single-virion resolution (Nature Microbiology)

Ortiz de Ora and colleagues created Phollow, a live-imaging approach that tracks phage replication and spread in situ at single-virion resolution by marking virions with distinct fluorescent proteins as they assemble in newly infected cells. Used in optically transparent zebrafish to visualize phage outbreaks in the vertebrate gut, it showed that virions from a zebrafish-derived Plesiomonas strain, but not a human-derived E. coli, rapidly disseminate to the liver and brain, and that antibiotics triggered waves of interbacterial transmission and sudden shifts in gut community ecology.