Fifteen years later, a trio of researchers at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University), Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty, demonstrated that this ...

Transformation is a genetic exchange mechanism by which “naked” DNA is taken up by bacteria. This newly acquired DNA may include genes that enable bacteria to perform tasks that were previously ...

The three most common ways that bacteria diversify their DNA are transformation, conjugation, and transduction. However, not all types of bacterial cells are capable of engaging in all three ...

Phages are viruses that attack bacteria by injecting their DNA, then usurping bacterial machinery to reproduce. Eventually, ...

“Wild stuff does happen.” The trillions of bacteria in our bodies regularly exchange DNA with each other, but the idea that their genes could end up in human DNA has been very controversial. In 2001, ...

DNA transfer between bacteria plays a crucial role in their survival. Yet, a key aspect of this process has remained underexplored: how is the exchange of genetic material so prevalent despite ...

This plasmid can be introduced into a bacterium by way of the process called transformation. Then, because bacteria divide rapidly, they can be used as factories to copy DNA fragments in large ...

All living things rely on RNAP to transcribe DNA into RNA. In bacteria, researchers have long known that transcription begins when RNAP clamps onto a DNA strand and initiates the process after ...

Through a process called transformation, bacteria can pick up loose pieces of DNA containing resistance genes from their surrounding environment and then pass them along to other bacteria—even ...

This article was originally published with the title “ The Recognition of DNA in Bacteria ” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 222 No. 1 (January 1970), p. 88 doi:10.1038 ...