Escherichia coli is a commensal of the vertebrate gut that is increasingly involved in various
intestinal and extra-intestinal infections as an opportunistic pathogen. Numerous pathotypes …

Escherichia coli is the most researched microbial organism in the world. Its varied impact on
human health, consisting of commensalism, gastrointestinal disease, or extraintestinal …

SUMMARY Extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) strains are responsible for a
majority of human extraintestinal infections globally, resulting in enormous direct medical …

Plasmid persistence in bacterial populations is strongly influenced by the fitness effects
associated with plasmid carriage. However, plasmid fitness effects in wild-type bacterial …

Antibiotic-resistant infections are an urgent problem in clinical settings because they sharply
increase mortality risk in critically ill patients. The horizontal spread of antibiotic resistance …

Background Whole genome sequence (WGS)-based strain ty** finds increasing use in the
epidemiologic analysis of bacterial pathogens in both public health as well as more …

The existence of large amounts of within-species genome content variability is puzzling.
Population genetics tells us that fitness effects of new variants—either deleterious, neutral or …

Early in its evolution, Enterococcus faecium acquired traits that allowed it to become a
successful nosocomial pathogen. E. faecium inherent tenacity to build resistance to …

Evolution is the hallmark of life. Descriptions of the evolution of microorganisms have
provided a wealth of information, but knowledge regarding “what happened” has precluded …

The'plasmid paradox'arises because, although plasmids are common features of bacterial
genomes, theoretically they should not exist: rates of conjugation were believed insufficient …