Pheromone-inducible conjugation in Enterococcus faecalis: interbacterial and host-parasite chemical communication

Abstract excerpt

Conjugation is a major mechanism of horizontal genetic transfer in gram-positive cocci and the genes transferred often include antibiotic resistance and virulence determinants (9, 14, 15, 40). A number of enterococcal conjugative plasmids can transfer very efficiently (frequencies as high as 5 3 1021 [17]) in liquid cultures. Expression of this highly efficient transfer system (which to date has been shown to be...