The term “plasmid” was coined by Joshua Lederberg in 1952 to describe extrachromosomal genetic elements observed during studies of bacterial conjugation and antibiotic resistance. Their transformation ...
Plasmids alter microbial evolution and lifestyles by mobilizing genes that often confer fitness in changing environments across clades. Yet our ecological and evolutionary understanding of naturally ...
Antibiotic resistance is a critical threat to global human health. Plasmids are a major driver contributing to this problem as they facilitate the horizontal dissemination of resistance genes via ...