Molecular
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Institute of Molecular Development LLC
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Natural conjugative plasmids induce bacterial biofilm
development.
JEAN-MARC GHIGO
The Nature, July 2001,
412, 442 - 445.
Although conjugation has been studied primarily in liquid, most natural bacterial populations are
found associated with environmental surfaces in complex multispecies communities called
biofilms. Biofilms are ideally suited to the exchange of genetic material of various origins,
and it has been shown that bacterial conjugation occurs within biofilms. Natural conjugative plasmids expressed factors that induced planktonic bacteria to form or enter biofilm communities, which favour the infectious transfer of the plasmid. This general connection between conjugation and biofilms suggests that medically relevant plasmid-bearing strains are more likely to form a biofilm.
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