The presence of an abnormal amount of single-stranded DNA in the bacterial cell constitutes
a genotoxic alarm signal that induces the SOS response, a broad regulatory network found …

Bacteria have a considerable ability and potential to acquire resistance against antimicrobial
agents by acting diverse mechanisms such as target modification or overexpression …

Conjugation is one mechanism for intra-and inter-species horizontal gene transfer among
bacteria. Conjugative elements have been instrumental in many bacterial species to face the …

The widespread use and abuse of antibiotics as therapeutic agents has produced a major
challenge for bacteria, leading to the selection and spread of antibiotic resistant variants …

Background RecA is a bacterial multifunctional protein essential to genetic recombination,
error-prone replicative bypass of DNA damages and regulation of SOS response. The …

Background Bacterial motility is a crucial factor in the colonization of natural environments.
Escherichia coli has two flagella-driven motility types: swimming and swarming. Swimming …

Beneficial mutations are rare and deleterious mutations are purged by natural selection. As
a result, the vast majority of mutations that accumulate in genomes belong to the class of …

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is recognized as the major force for bacterial genome
evolution. Yet, numerous questions remain about the transferred genes, their function …

The Bacillus subtilis recH 342 strain, which decreases interspecies recombination without
significantly affecting the frequency of transformation with homogamic DNA, carried a point …

Homologous recombination plays a key role in generating genetic diversity, while
maintaining protein functionality. The mechanisms by which RecA enables a single …