Emergence of plasmid stability under non-selective conditions maintains antibiotic resistance

It is expected that plasmids are costly and therefore that selection is required to maintain them within bacterial populations. Here, Wein et al. show that plasmid stability can emerge even in the absence of positive selection and that loss may be determined by transcription-replication conflict.

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tanita Wein, Nils F. Hülter, Itzhak Mizrahi, Tal Dagan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2019-06-01
Series:Nature Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10600-7