ArticleNature communications2017
Persistence and reversal of plasmid-mediated antibiotic resistance.
Article in Nature communications, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 190 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
190 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 362 citations in OpenAlex.
- Quantifying antimicrobial resistance in food-producing animals in North America.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Pooled it
- Quantifying conjugation rates in clinical and environmental matrices: a systematic review to inform risk assessment.Frontiers in microbiomes · 2024Pooled it
- Microbiome ecology and antibiotic treatment failure: resistance spread, microbial competition and community engineering.Microbial genomics · 2026Review
- Spatial constraints determine the spread of plasmid-encoded antibiotic resistance between bacterial colonies.mSystems · 2026Article
- Plasmid-Host Networks Reveal Persistent Mobile Elements Across Wastewater Treatment.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Invasive plasmids as ecosystem engineers-from mechanism to application.Essays in biochemistry · 2026Review
- Investigating the mobility and host range of mobile genetic elements harbouring antimicrobial resistance genes in enterococci.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2026Article
- Do plasmid-dependent phages enable the survival of costly plasmids?bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Redefining Antimicrobial Resistance inInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Integrating theory and machine learning to reveal determinants of plasmid copy number.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Mobile Genetic Elements as Central Drivers of Antimicrobial Resistance: Molecular Mechanisms, Evolutionary Ecology, One Health Implications and Control Strategies.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Horizontal and vertical gene transfer shape the plasmid host range in surface-associated microbial systems.iScience · 2026Article
- Persistence of environmental and wastewater-associated antibiotic resistance in river water.Environmental monitoring and assessment · 2026Article
- Metagenomic profiling of antimicrobial resistance in wastewater from metropolitan cities of India.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Ecological context structures duplication and mobilization of antibiotic and metal resistance genes in bacteria.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Beyond Resistance: Phenotypic Plasticity in Bacterial Responses to Antibiotics, Oxidative Stress and Antimicrobial Photodynamic Inactivation.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Beyond borders: plasmids drive a shared antibiotic resistome in European urban water systems.Microbiome · 2026Article
- Eco-evolutionary responses to plasmid-dependent phage constrain the spread of multidrug-resistance plasmids.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Article
- Fitness costs and persistence of plasmid-mediated cephalosporin resistance inFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
130 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In the absence of antibiotic-mediated selection, sensitive bacteria are expected to displace their resistant counterparts if resistance genes are costly. However, many resistance genes persist for long periods in the absence of antibiotics. Horizontal gene transfer (primarily conjugation) could explain this persistence, but it has been suggested that very high conjugation rates would be required. Here, we show that common conjugal plasmids, even when costly, are indeed transferred at sufficiently high rates to be maintained in the absence of antibiotics in Escherichia coli. The notion is applicable to nine plasmids from six major incompatibility groups and mixed populations carrying multiple plasmids. These results suggest that reducing antibiotic use alone is likely insufficient for reversing resistance. Therefore, combining conjugation inhibition and promoting plasmid loss would be an effective strategy to limit conjugation-assisted persistence of antibiotic resistance.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.