Today marks the end of 2016's World Antibiotic Awareness Week, aimed to increase awareness of antibiotic resistance and to advocate for the prudent use of these drugs.
One of the key drivers of antibiotic resistance is how rapidly bacteria acquire DNA from the environment or from other bacteria. Resistance elements are often carried on mobile elements, DNA that can move around the genome or be transferred to other genomes. The almost universal rapid assimilation of DNA by bacteria leads to the acquisition of multiple antibiotic resistance genes in a variety of bacterial species. One such example of a DNA mobile element is the plasmid, small circular DNA that replicates independently of the chromosome and can be transferred from bacterium to bacterium during cell division, transformation, and conjugation. (more…)