ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2022
Selfish, promiscuous and sometimes useful: how mobile genetic elements drive horizontal gene transfer in microbial populations.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 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
80 citing papers in PubMed, 136 citations in OpenAlex.
- The activity, divergence, and evolutionary degradation of modern-day homing endonucleases and behavior of their reconstructed ancestors.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Urban-Adjacent Soils as a Global Reservoir of Toxigenic and Antimicrobial-ResistantInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Hydrothermal regimes regulate microbiome patterns across vertical profile and their responses to alpine permafrost degradation.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Bioactive Hydrogel-MOF Composites as Resistance-Modulating Wound Interfaces: Molecular Mechanisms and Rational Design for Chronic Wound Management.Gels (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Antimicrobial Resistance Across the Urban Wastewater Continuum: A One Health Assessment Using High-Throughput qPCR.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Mobile genetic elements shape microbial diversity and functions in thawing permafrost soils.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Horizontal Gene Transfer and Genome Rearrangements Shape Bacterial Adaptation for Bioremediation.Environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Advancements in Technologies Targeting Horizontal Gene TransferRoutes to Control Drug Resistance Evolution.ACS bio & med chem Au · 2026Review
- Decoding phage communication: molecular networks, evolutionary dynamics, and therapeutic applications.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Review
- Plasmids inClinical microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Comprehensive in silico analysis of eggNOG-annotated orthologous genes infers functional dynamics and energy metabolism in the microbiome of Abutilon fruticosum.BMC plant biology · 2026Article
- The presence and impact of G-quadruplexes in plant chloroplast DNA.BMC plant biology · 2026Article
- Nested mobile genetic elements mediating antimicrobial resistance genes mobility within and betweeniScience · 2026Article
- Carbapenem-ResistantAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Positive Selection Targeted Primate Genes that Encode Transposable Element Repressors.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Causes and consequences of bacterial local adaptation via MGEs in the plant microbiome.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Ecological context structures duplication and mobilization of antibiotic and metal resistance genes in bacteria.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Evolutionary mechanisms underlying bacterial adaptation to the plant environment.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Decoding the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of bacterial virulence gene expression using single-cell approaches.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Infectious bacteria as biological warfare agents: mechanisms, epidemiological threats, and defense strategies.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2026Review
20 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
4 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) drives microbial adaptation but is often under the control of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) whose interests are not necessarily aligned with those of their hosts. In general, transfer is costly to the donor cell while potentially beneficial to the recipients. The diversity and plasticity of cell-MGEs interactions, and those among MGEs, result in complex evolutionary processes where the source, or even the existence of selection for maintaining a function in the genome, is often unclear. For example, MGE-driven HGT depends on cell envelope structures and defense systems, but many of these are transferred by MGEs themselves. MGEs can spur periods of intense gene transfer by increasing their own rates of horizontal transmission upon communicating, eavesdropping, or sensing the environment and the host physiology. This may result in high-frequency transfer of host genes unrelated to the MGE. Here, we review how MGEs drive HGT and how their transfer mechanisms, selective pressures and genomic traits affect gene flow, and therefore adaptation, in microbial populations. The encoding of many adaptive niche-defining microbial traits in MGEs means that intragenomic conflicts and alliances between cells and their MGEs are key to microbial functional diversification. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Genomic population structures of microbial pathogens'.
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.