Plasmids are mosaic in composition with a maintenance “backbone” as well as “accessory” genes obtained via horizontal gene transfer. This horizontal gene transfer complicates the study of their genetic relationships. We ...

Classification microarrays are used for purposes such as identifying strains of bacteria and determining genetic relationships to understand the epidemiology of an infectious disease. For these cases, mixed microarrays, ...

Large multidrug resistance plasmids of the A/C incompatibility complex (IncA/C) have been found in a diverse group of Gram-negative commensal and pathogenic bacteria. We present three completed sequences from IncA/C plasmids ...

We hypothesized that bacterial populations growing in the absence of antibiotics will accumulate more resistance gene mutations than bacterial populations growing in the presence of antibiotics. If this is so, the prevalence ...

Comparative genomic hybridizations have been used to examine genetic relationships among bacteria. The microarrays used in these experiments may have open reading frames from one or more reference strains (whole-genome ...

Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multiple-locus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis (MLVA) are used to assess genetic similarity between bacterial strains. There are cases, however, when neither of these ...

In this paper we present a new ab initio approach for constructing an unrooted dendrogram using protein clusters, an approach that has the potential for estimating relationships among several thousands of species based on ...

We describe the protocol for an inexpensive and nondestructive optical reflectance assay for the measurement of biofilm formation. Reflectance data are obtained using an Ocean Optics !Dunedin, Florida" USB 2000 spectrometer ...

Thousands of whole-genome and whole-proteome sequences have been made available through advances in sequencing technology, and sequences of millions more organisms will become available in the coming years. This wealth of ...

The increasing prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria drives the need for advanced methods to identify antimicrobial-resistance (AMR) genes in bacterial pathogens. With the availability of whole genome sequences, ...