Survival and Evolution of a Large Multidrug Resistance Plasmid in New Clinical Bacterial Hosts.

ABSTRACT: Large conjugative plasmids are important drivers of bacterial evolution and contribute significantly to the dissemination of antibiotic resistance. Although plasmid borne multidrug resistance is recognized as one of the main challenges in modern medicine, the adaptive forces shaping the evolution of these plasmids within pathogenic hosts are poorly understood. Here we study plasmid-host adaptations following transfer of a 73 kb conjugative multidrug resistance plasmid to naïve clinical isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli. We use experimental evolution, mathematical modelling and population sequencing to show that the long-term persistence and molecular integrity of the plasmid is highly influenced by multiple factors within a 25 kb plasmid region constituting a host-depe

SUBMITTER: Porse A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5062321 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature