Where the plasmids roam: large-scale sequence analysis reveals plasmids with large host ranges.

ABSTRACT: Describing the role of plasmids and their contribution to the exchange of genetic material among bacteria is essential for understanding the fields of plasmid epidemiology, microbial ecology, and commercial and synthetic microbiology. Broad-host-range (BHR) plasmids are those that are found not only in a single bacterial species, but in members of different taxonomic groups and are of significant interest to researchers in many fields. We applied a novel approach to computationally identify new BHR plasmids, in which we searched for highly similar cognate plasmids within a comprehensive plasmid database. After identifying 125 plasmid groups with highly similar cognates found in multiple taxa, we closely examined BHR plasmids found in multiple families. The majority of our identified BHR pl

SUBMITTER: Brooks LE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6412061 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature