Plasmids are genetic elements that play a role in bacterial evolution by providing new genes
that promote adaptation to diverse conditions. Plasmids are also known to reduce bacterial …

Plasmids mediate the horizontal transmission of genetic information between bacteria,
facilitating their adaptation to multiple environmental conditions. An especially important …

Plasmids are extrachromosomal DNA elements that can be found throughout bacteria, as
well as in other domains of life. Nonetheless, the evolutionary processes underlying the …

Naturally occurring plasmids have medical importance given that they frequently code for
virulence or antibiotic resistance. In many cases, plasmids impose a fitness cost to their …

The global dissemination of plasmids encoding antibiotic resistance represents an urgent
issue for human health and society. While the fitness costs for host cells associated with …

It is difficult to understand plasmid maintenance in the absence of selection and theoretical
models predict the conditions for plasmid persistence to be limited. Plasmid-associated …

The evolutionary pressures that determine the location (chromosomal or plasmid-borne) of
bacterial genes are not fully understood. We investigate these pressures through …

Multidrug resistant bacterial pathogens have become a serious global human health threat,
and conjugative plasmids are important drivers of the rapid spread of resistance to last …

Plasmids contain a backbone of core genes that remains relatively stable for long
evolutionary periods, making sense to speak about plasmid species. The identification and …

Highlights•Plasmid evolution reviewed from the perspective of plasmids.•Mobility, stability,
and indispensability largely determine plasmid lifestyles.•Changes in plasmid traits facilitate …