The extraordinary powers of bacteria visualized in real time

Science Daily  May 23, 2019
The global spread of antibiotic resistance is a major public health issue. The spread of antibiotic resistance is for the most part due to the capacity of bacteria to exchange genetic material through a process known as bacterial conjugation. The ability of the bacterium to expel the antibiotic before it can exert its destructive effect using “efflux pumps” found on its membrane. Experimenting with E. Coli researchers in France have revealed that in just 1 to 2 hours, the single-stranded DNA fragment of the efflux pump was transformed into double-stranded DNA and then translated into functional protein, thereby conferring the tetracycline resistance on the recipient bacterium. This study opens new avenues in the search for similar mechanisms in bacteria other than E. coli, and for different antibiotics…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE 

Bacterial cell culture (stock image). Credit: © sinhyu / Adobe Stock

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