Fig 4. GC-supplementation partially rescues fitness of cells with GC-rich plasmids.

Eight pairwise cocultures of cells harbouring AT-rich and GC-rich pJet plasmids were co-inoculated (1:1 ratio) and serially propagated on a daily basis. Strains were supplied with AT or GC deoxyribonucleosides (100 μM per nucleoside). Survival rates of GC-rich E. coli strains were calculated by scoring the number of populations, in which GC-rich strains were still present relative to the total number of populations within each treatment (n = 32). Each of the eight pairwise combination of strains was replicated four times. Treatment groups comprise the unsupplemented control (triangles), supply with AT-nucleosides (squares), and supply with GC-nucleosides (circles). Asterisks indicate survival rates that were significantly different from the unsupplemented control group. False discovery rate-corrected Wilcoxon signed ranks-test: ** P < 0.01, * P < 0.05, n = 32 per group.