Bacterial infections are becoming increasingly difficult to treat due to widespread antibiotic
resistance among pathogens. This review aims to give an overview of the major horizontal …

Plasmids are key vectors of horizontal gene transfer and essential genetic engineering tools.
They code for genes involved in many aspects of microbial biology, including detoxication …

Evolution is the hallmark of life. Descriptions of the evolution of microorganisms have
provided a wealth of information, but knowledge regarding “what happened” has precluded …

Mutation and horizontal gene transfer (HGT) continually give rise to new bacterial
genotypes. Infrequently, such new bacterial genotypes establish and spread in the larger …

Horizontal genomics is a new field in prokaryotic biology that is focused on the analysis of
DNA sequences in prokaryotic chromosomes that seem to have originated from other …

Bacillus subtilis is a remarkably diverse bacterial species that is capable of growth within
many environments. Recent microarray-based comparative genomic analyses have …

Horizontal gene transfer shapes the genomes of prokaryotes by allowing rapid acquisition of
novel adaptive functions. Conjugation allows the broadest range and the highest gene …

Antibiotic resistance, virulence, and other plasmids in bacteria use toxin-antitoxin gene pairs
to ensure their persistence during host replication. The toxin-antitoxin system eliminates …

Horizontal gene transfer mediated by broad-host-range plasmids is an important mechanism
of antibiotic resistance spread. While not all bacteria maintain plasmids equally well …

Bacterial conjugation in Gram-negative bacteria is triggered by a signal that connects the
relaxosome to the coupling protein (T4CP) and transferosome, a type IV secretion system …