Exploring the evolutionary dynamics of plasmids: the Acinetobacter pan-plasmidome.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Prokaryotic plasmids have a dual importance in the microbial world: first they have a great impact on the metabolic functions of the host cell, providing additional traits that can be accumulated in the cell without altering the gene content of the bacterial chromosome. Additionally and/or alternatively, from a genome perspective, plasmids can provide a basis for genomic rearrangements via homologous recombination and so they can facilitate the loss or acquisition of genes during these events, which eventually may lead to horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Given their importance for conferring adaptive traits to the host organisms, the interest in plasmid sequencing is growing and now many complete plasmid sequences are available online.

Results

By using the newly de

SUBMITTER: Fondi M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2848654 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature