Plasmids generally contain genes that confer a selective advantage to their bacterial hosts through antibiotic resistance or virulence factors. However, despite these advantages,plasmid transfer rates are normaly very low due to segregation and fitness costs to their hosts; too low to account for their widespread existence.
I would like to hear from anyone who has any insight into this matter. There are some reported cases where evolved plasmids introduced into bacteria have increased their fitness almost two-fold.
"Pedro" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:
Plasmids generally contain genes that confer a selective
advantage to
Quoted message said:
their bacterial hosts through antibiotic resistance or
virulence
Quoted message said:
factors. However, despite these advantages,plasmid
transfer rates are
Quoted message said:
normaly very low due to segregation and fitness costs to
their hosts;
Quoted message said:
too low to account for their widespread existence.
What does "widespread" mean here? Is there really any objective measure of existence relative to other lifeforms? This sounds like a very subjective thing wrt prerequisite characteristics/ conditions for specific examples (i.e., is this a semantics problem?) ...tonyC <non-biologist>
Quoted message said:
I would like to hear from anyone who has any insight into
this matter.
Quoted message said:
There are some reported cases where evolved plasmids
introduced into
Quoted message said:
bacteria have increased their fitness almost two-fold.
