ReviewGenes2017
The Obscure World of Integrative and Mobilizable Elements, Highly Widespread Elements that Pirate Bacterial Conjugative Systems.
Review in Genes, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 81 papers.
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
81 citing papers in PubMed, 147 citations in OpenAlex.
- NDM-1-producingJAC-antimicrobial resistance · 2026Article
- Perturbations shift the composition of bacterial DNA carried by virus-like particles in the murine gut microbiome.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Initial identification of genomic islands in Taylorella equigenitalis and Taylorella asinigenitalis and their distribution in isolates from around the world.BMC microbiology · 2026Article
- West Siberian Soil Resistome: Mobile Antibiotic Resistance in Agricultural Microbiomes.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Identification of the Integration/Excision Module and Regulatory Elements Involved in the Mobility of IME8, an Integrative and Mobilizable Element From Mosquitocidal Lysinibacillus sphaericus.Microbial biotechnology · 2026Article
- Mobile Genetic Elements as Central Drivers of Antimicrobial Resistance: Molecular Mechanisms, Evolutionary Ecology, One Health Implications and Control Strategies.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Macrolide resistance determinants and their associations in streptococci from selected livestock and wildlife species from Catalonia, Northeast Spain.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Article
- IME_Rho_tet, a novel family of putative integrative mobilizable elements spreading tetracycline resistance genesMicrobial genomics · 2026Article
- Article
- Genomic plasticity and mobilome architecture ofMicrobial genomics · 2026Article
- Pan-immune system, mobilome and resistome inMicrobial genomics · 2025Article
- Interaction of the SXT/R391 element ICEMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Genomic characterization of antimicrobial resistance and mobile genetic elements in swine gut bacteria isolated from a Canadian research farm.Animal microbiome · 2025Article
- Massive acquisition of conjugative and mobilizable integrated elements fuels Faecalibacterium plasticity and hints at their adaptation to the gut.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Carbapenem-ResistantAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Investigation of mobile genetic elements and their association with antibiotic resistance genes in clinical pathogens worldwide.PloS one · 2025Article
- Mobile genetic elements encoding antibiotic resistance genes and virulence genes inFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Review
- Genomic analysis of conjugative and chromosomally integrated mobile genetic elements in oral streptococci.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Hijackers, hitchhikers, or co-drivers? The mysteries of mobilizable genetic elements.PLoS biology · 2024Article
21 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
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Conjugation is a key mechanism of bacterial evolution that involves mobile genetic elements. Recent findings indicated that the main actors of conjugative transfer are not the well-known conjugative or mobilizable plasmids but are the integrated elements. This paper reviews current knowledge on "integrative and mobilizable elements" (IMEs) that have recently been shown to be highly diverse and highly widespread but are still rarely described. IMEs encode their own excision and integration and use the conjugation machinery of unrelated co-resident conjugative element for their own transfer. Recent studies revealed a much more complex and much more diverse lifecycle than initially thought. Besides their main transmission as integrated elements, IMEs probably use plasmid-like strategies to ensure their maintenance after excision. Their interaction with conjugative elements reveals not only harmless hitchhikers but also hunters that use conjugative elements as target for their integration or harmful parasites that subvert the conjugative apparatus of incoming elements to invade cells that harbor them. IMEs carry genes conferring various functions, such as resistance to antibiotics, that can enhance the fitness of their hosts and that contribute to their maintenance in bacterial populations. Taken as a whole, IMEs are probably major contributors to bacterial evolution.
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.