HELIXPrep › Genetics, Cellular and Molecular Biology › Genetics & Evolutionary Biology
Module 3.1 · Topic 1
Module 3.1 · Topic 1
Two ways your genome isn't as fixed as you think
A bacterium becomes resistant to an antibiotic it has never encountered before — not over generations of mutation and selection, but in a single afternoon, by absorbing a ready-made resistance gene from a completely unrelated bacterium sitting next to it. No animal or plant can do anything like this. Why can bacteria?
Genetic information usually passes from parent to offspring. Can it also move sideways — between two unrelated individuals in the same generation?
A bacterium acquiring an antibiotic-resistance gene directly from a neighbouring, unrelated bacterium is an example of:
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