ArticleNature communications2020
Pathways for horizontal gene transfer in bacteria revealed by a global map of their plasmids.
Article in Nature communications, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 233 papers.
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Who cites it
233 citing papers in PubMed.
- Probiotic-induced enrichment ofGut microbes · 2025Trial
- Plasmidomics: studying plasmids as ecological entities beyond their hosts.Microbial genomics · 2026Review
- Pathogenome and Plasmid-Borne Antimicrobial Resistance Phenotypes in a Multidrug-Resistant O111:H8 Shiga Toxin-ProducingbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The shared evolutionary capacities of plasmids and extrachromosomal DNA.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Invasive plasmids as ecosystem engineers-from mechanism to application.Essays in biochemistry · 2026Review
- Niche Construction: A Rational Engineering Strategy for Regulating Microbial Assembly to Enhance Flavor and Bioactivity of Fermented Foods.Comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety · 2026Review
- Phylogenetic distribution and longitudinal persistence of plasmids inMicrobial genomics · 2026Article
- The leading region of many plasmids is adapted for translational efficiency.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- pLAST-a tool for rapid comparison and classification of bacterial plasmid sequences.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Ecological theory sheds light on plasmid diversity and dynamics.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Genomic and pan-genomic analyses of Bacillus subtilis B13 provide insights into biosynthetic potential and genetic traits associated with environmental adaptation.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2026Article
- Gain and loss of plasmid-borne antibiotic resistance genes are associated with chromosomal resistance presence in Enterobacteriaceae.mSystems · 2026Article
- Whole genome analysis reveals chromosomal and plasmid-mediated convergence of drug resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2026Article
- Three completeMicrobiology resource announcements · 2026Article
- Using auxotrophic donor strains to explore pQBR57 plasmid host range among environmental soil bacterial isolates.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal genomic analysis and risk assessment of the plasmids carrying blaBMC microbiology · 2026Article
- Soil Resistomes in a Tropical Watershed are Indirectly Structured by Bacterial Community Interactions with Soil Properties.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Population dynamics and genomic characterization ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Pathogen species and capsule expression shape opportunistic transfer and the recipient response during plasmid RP4 conjugation.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Nested mobile genetic elements mediating antimicrobial resistance genes mobility within and betweeniScience · 2026Article
173 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Plasmids can mediate horizontal gene transfer of antibiotic resistance, virulence genes, and other adaptive factors across bacterial populations. Here, we analyze genomic composition and pairwise sequence identity for over 10,000 reference plasmids to obtain a global map of the prokaryotic plasmidome. Plasmids in this map organize into discrete clusters, which we call plasmid taxonomic units (PTUs), with high average nucleotide identity between its members. We identify 83 PTUs in the order Enterobacterales, 28 of them corresponding to previously described archetypes. Furthermore, we develop an automated algorithm for PTU identification, and validate its performance using stochastic blockmodeling. The algorithm reveals a total of 276 PTUs in the bacterial domain. Each PTU exhibits a characteristic host distribution, organized into a six-grade scale (I-VI), ranging from plasmids restricted to a single host species (grade I) to plasmids able to colonize species from different phyla (grade VI). More than 60% of the plasmids in the global map are in groups with host ranges beyond the species barrier.
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