Strains of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, particularly those that are multiresistant, are an
increasing major health care problem around the world. It is now abundantly clear that both …

Staphylococcus aureus is a serious human pathogen with remarkable adaptive powers.
Antibiotic-resistant clones rapidly emerge mainly by acquisition of antibiotic-resistance …

Conjugation drives the horizontal transfer of adaptive traits across prokaryotes. One-fourth of
the plasmids encode the functions necessary to conjugate autonomously, the others being …

Plasmids can be transferred between cells by conjugation, thereby driving bacterial
evolution by horizontal gene transfer. Yet, we ignore the molecular mechanisms of transfer …

It is commonly assumed that the horizontal transfer of most bacterial chromosomal genes is
limited, in contrast to the frequent transfer observed for typical mobile genetic elements …

Antibiotic resistance could accelerate humanity towards an already fast-approaching post-
antibiotic era, where disinfectants and effective biosecurity measures will be critically …

ABSTRACT K1/K2 hvKP strains acquire carbapenem-resistance plasmids, known as CR-
hvKp, and carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) strains obtain virulence …

Acinetobacter baumannii is an emergent bacterial pathogen that provokes many types of
infections in hospitals around the world. The genome of this organism consists of a …

Conjugation has classically been considered the main mechanism driving plasmid transfer
in nature. Yet bacteria frequently carry so-called non-transmissible plasmids, raising …

Horizontal gene transfer via plasmids could favour cooperation in bacteria, because transfer
of a cooperative gene turns non-cooperative cheats into cooperators. This hypothesis has …