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 ...