ArticleNature communications2019
Emergence of plasmid stability under non-selective conditions maintains antibiotic resistance.
Article in Nature communications, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 113 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
113 citing papers in PubMed, 232 citations in OpenAlex.
- Spatial constraints determine the spread of plasmid-encoded antibiotic resistance between bacterial colonies.mSystems · 2026Article
- The shared evolutionary capacities of plasmids and extrachromosomal DNA.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Advances in Decoding Bacterial N-Terminal Proteoforms: Technologies, Challenges, and Functional Insights.Microorganisms · 2026Review
- Single-Step Chromosomal Engineering Integrates Biocontainment and Therapeutic Function for Regulatory-Oriented Live Biotherapeutic Chassis Design.Pharmaceutics · 2026Article
- Intergeneric conjugative transfer of plasmid-associated antibiotic resistance genes from environmental Aeromonas spp. to gram-negative recipient strains.Molecular biology reports · 2026Article
- Modelling the role of the microbiome in antimicrobial resistance across scales.Nature microbiology · 2026Review
- Comparative genomics and methylome profiling ofMicrobial genomics · 2026Article
- Comparative Analysis of Lineage Structure, Cellulose Locus Context, and Mobilome Diversity Across CompleteMicroorganisms · 2026Article
- Bioengineering Interventions to Enhance the Capacity of the Gut Microbiota in Controlling Food Allergies.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Article
- Seasonal prevalence of extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing bacteria in food-chain animals, humans, and the surrounding environment in Fayoum governorate: a one health approach.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- PCNE: A Tool for Plasmid Copy Number Estimation.Bioinformatics and biology insights · 2026Article
- Fitness costs and persistence of plasmid-mediated cephalosporin resistance inFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Epidemiological trends of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic Escherichia coli in swine farms from the Northwest Iberian Peninsula and evaluation of air sampling for antibiotic resistance surveillance.Porcine health management · 2025Article
- Transient analysis and engineering of bacterial metabolic pathways using cell-penetrating peptide-peptide nucleic acid conjugates.Microbial cell factories · 2025Article
- A stable and antibiotic-free plasmid expression system foriScience · 2025Article
- Dynamic plasmid clustering in Bacteria: Influence of transcriptional activity and host cellular states.Biochemistry and biophysics reports · 2025Article
- The combination of active partitioning and toxin-antitoxin systems is most advantageous for low-copy plasmid fitness.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The extended mobility of plasmids.Nucleic acids research · 2025Review
- Distribution and Evolutionary Trajectories of β-Lactamases in Vibrio: Genomic Insights from Carbenicillin-Hydrolyzing Class A β-Lactamases (CARB) in the Harveyi and Cholerae Clades.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
53 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Plasmid acquisition is an important mechanism of rapid adaptation and niche expansion in prokaryotes. Positive selection for plasmid-coded functions is a major driver of plasmid evolution, while plasmids that do not confer a selective advantage are considered costly and expected to go extinct. Yet, plasmids are ubiquitous in nature, and their persistence remains an evolutionary paradox. Here, we demonstrate that non-mobile plasmids persist over evolutionary timescales without selection for the plasmid function. Evolving a minimal plasmid encoding for antibiotics resistance in Escherichia coli, we discover that plasmid stability emerges in the absence of antibiotics and that plasmid loss is determined by transcription-replication conflicts. We further find that environmental conditions modulate these conflicts and plasmid persistence. Silencing the transcription of the resistance gene results in stable plasmids that become fixed in the population. Evolution of plasmid stability under non-selective conditions provides an evolutionary explanation for the ubiquity of plasmids in nature.
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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.