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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Testing the Role of Multicopy Plasmids in the Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance
Published on: May 2, 2018
Rational design of a plasmid origin that replicates efficiently in both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria
Anton V Bryksin1, Ichiro Matsumura
1Center for Fundamental and Applied Molecular Evolution, Department of Biochemistry, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America.
Background:
Most plasmids replicate only within a particular genus or family.
Methodology/Principal Findings:
Here we describe an engineered high copy number expression vector, pBAV1K-T5, that produces varying quantities of active reporter proteins in Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, (all gram-negative), Streptococcus pneumoniae, Leifsonia shinshuensis, Peanibacillus sp. S18-36 and Bacillus subtilis (gram-positive).
Conclusions/Significance:
Our results demonstrate the efficiency of pBAV1K-T5 replication in different bacterial species, thereby facilitating the study of proteins that don't fold well in E. coli and pathogens not amenable to existing genetic tools.
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