Researchers at the University of Oxford report that plasmids are one of the key culprits in spreading the major global health threat of antibiotic resistance. Using an Escherichia coli ...

An international collaboration has achieved an important breakthrough in understanding the genetic mechanisms that allow bacteria to build resistance to drugs.

Firstly they have been used to construct hybrid plasmids. Studies with these have indicated that one constituent of a hybrid controls replication but the other can function if the controlling ...

New research from the University of Sheffield has found that bacterial plasmids readily pick up new genes and spread them to new species – something which is an increasing concern for transfer ...

Its functions are essential for head assembly, genome packaging, neck and tail attachment, and genome ejection. The focus of this study was to determine the functions of the portal at the molecular ...