Dynamic cellular location of bacterial plasmids
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 28, 2026

High-Resolution Comparison of Bacterial Conjugation Frequencies
Published on: January 10, 2019
1Division of Biology, University of California, San Diego, 4105 Bonner Hall, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0349, USA. jpoglian@biomail.ucsd.edu
Abstract:
Recent studies have shown that plasmids are organized inside bacterial cells in a remarkably complex way. Plasmids containing active partitioning systems are tethered to specific regions of the cell, and the number and position of plasmid molecules within the cell are coordinated with the bacterial host cell cycle and growth rate. Plasmids belonging to different incompatibility groups are also tethered to different sites within the cell, and segregate at different times relative to one another and to the bacterial cell cycle. Recent studies suggest that many of these observations regarding subcellular plasmid dynamics formulated for Escherichia coli plasmids may be broadly conserved.
Related Concept Videos
Plasmids
Genomic DNA in Prokaryotes
Genomic Diversity in Bacteria
Although bacterial genomes are much...
Bacterial Transformation
Prokaryotic Cells
Like eukaryotic cells, all prokaryotic cells are surrounded by a plasma membrane, have genetic material in the form of single, circular DNA, a cytoplasm that fills the interior of the cell, and ribosomes that synthesize proteins.
Prokaryotic Cells
Mechanism of Conjugation

