Extent and control of plasmid conjugation: dynamics, interactions and barriers

Resumen del trabajo presentado al Plasmid Biology Meeting, celebrado en Cambridge (UK) del 18 al 23 de septiembre de 2016.Plasmid conjugation is the preferred route of dissemination of important adaptive traits in bacteria, such as antibiotic resistance genes. If conjugation could be tamed and controlled at will, we will have a strong hand to control antibiotic resistance acquisition by human pathogens. To achieve this objective, we determined the dynamics of plasmid conjugation using various plasmid prototypes. We could distinguish between density-dependent and frequency-dependent conjugation dynamics. Broad-host range plasmids, which show inherently high conjugation rates (R0 >1), are able to invade recipient populations. This is in contrast to repressed plasmids, such as members of the MOBF12 / IncF complex, which show R0