Transformation Conjugation Transduction

Simple proteins and protein complexes contain only amino acids. In contrast, many other proteins, called conjugated proteins, covalently bond with non-protein moieties. Nucleoproteins are protein complexes that contain nucleic acids, categorized as deoxyribonucleoproteins (DNPs) or ribonucleoproteins (RNPs) respectively. The nucleosome is a typical example of a DNP where nuclear DNA is associated with histone proteins. The major antigen for the Covid-19 virus SARS-CoV is an RNP that is critical...

Source: Alexander S. Gold1, Tonya M. Colpitts1 1 Department of Microbiology, Boston University School of Medicine, National Emerging Infections Diseases Laboratories, Boston, MA First discovered by Lederberg and Tatum in 1946, conjugation is a form of horizontal gene transfer between bacteria that relies on direct physical contact between two bacterial cells (1). Unlike other forms of gene transfer, such as transformation or transduction, conjugation is a naturally occurring process in which...

Background In early 20th century, pneumonia was accountable for a large portion of infectious disease deaths1. In order to develop an effective vaccine against pneumonia, Frederick Griffith set out to study two different strains of the Streptococcus pneumoniae: a non-virulent strain with a rough appearance (R-strain) and a virulent strain with a smooth appearance (S-strain) due to an outer polysaccharide capsule2. This outer layer of the S-strain bacteria enabled them to withstand the host...

Among the three main modes of HGT—transformation, conjugation, and transduction—transduction is unique in that it is mediated by bacteriophages, or bacterial viruses.Transduction occurs in two ways. Generalized transduction occurs during the lytic cycle of a bacteriophage infection. In this process, bacteriophages infect bacterial cells, replicate within them, and ultimately cause cell lysis, releasing newly assembled virions. Occasionally, random fragments of the bacterial genome are...

Conjugation is a form of horizontal gene transfer that primarily occurs in bacteria and some archaea, promoting genetic diversity and adaptation. Bacteria can acquire resistance genes through conjugative plasmids, allowing them to survive antibiotic treatments that would otherwise be lethal. This process involves direct contact between cells through specialized structures such as the sex pilus and is mediated by conjugative plasmids, including the F (fertility) factor.Conjugation requires...