Direct and convenient measurement of plasmid stability in lab and clinical isolates of E. coli.

ABSTRACT: Plasmids are important mobile elements in bacteria, contributing to evolution, virulence, and antibiotic resistance. Natural plasmids are generally large and maintained at low copy number and thus prone to be lost. Therefore, dedicated plasmid maintenance systems have evolved, leading to plasmid loss rates as low as 1 per 10⁷ divisions. These low rates complicate studies of plasmid loss, as traditional techniques for measuring plasmid loss are laborious and not quantitative. To overcome these limitations, we leveraged a stringent negative selection system to develop a method for performing direct, quantitative measurements of plasmid loss in E. coli. We applied our method to gain mechanistic insights into a heterologously reconstituted segregation system in lab strains and clini

SUBMITTER: Chen S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5500522 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature