Bacteria exchange genes easily, but a newly discovered set of rules that regulate these exchanges could help us to prevent the spread of ...
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| Bacteria exchange genes easily, but a newly discovered set of rules that regulate these exchanges could help us to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance. |
Bacteria are our constant and ubiquitous companions. Teeming throngs of bacteria shimmy around on every surface and their collective biomass is more than a thousand times bigger than that of the entire human population.
We would not survive for long without bacteria. We owe them for making our planet habitable and for their role in returning nutrients to the soil. Earth without microbes is a nightmare scenario. However, the evolutionary processes that allow bacteria to survive in conditions that are off limits to other lifeforms can also make them detrimental to human health.
Unlike the human genome, which remains relatively unadulterated during our lifetimes, bacteria acquire new genetic material frequently. Some of the bacteria around you have changed since you began reading this.
While our own genetic material is tucked away behind the protective membranes of a nucleus, bacteria have no such vault-like structure. A single bacterium can have acquired as much as 60% of its genome recently through a phenomenon called horizontal gene transfer (HGT), where large swaths of DNA can be swapped in or completely replaced in a single step.
Source:Phys.org
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