The term “plasmid” was coined by Joshua Lederberg in 1952 to describe extrachromosomal genetic elements observed during studies of bacterial conjugation and antibiotic resistance. Their transformation ...

Molecular biology is an ever-changing field, and most significant developments have happened because of changes in plasmid DNA sequencing. A plasmid, a circular and small double-stranded DNA entity ...

There are trillions of microorganisms in the human gastrointestinal tract, and this gut microbiome includes bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi. Scientists have now found that a mysterious plasmid, ...

Scientists have reported large DNA structures in some archaea that defy easy categorization. When the microbiologist Jillian Banfield and her colleagues started combing through samples of mud from ...