Abstract
BACTERIAL transfer factors are virus-like agents which mediate the transmission of genetic characters by conjugation in the Enterobacteriaceae. The first to be discovered was the F or ‘sex’ factor of Escherichia coli K12 (ref. 1), and for some time this was the only one to be investigated. The demonstration of the transmissibility of colicinogeny2, and the discovery of transferable drug resistance3–5, revealed the existence of a multiplicity of transfer factors. Recent work6–8 suggests that such factors are basically independent of the genetic characters they carry and that they are widely distributed in the Enterobacteriaceae. It is probable that drug resistance and colicinogeny are only two of a range of characters they can transfer.
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References
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ANDERSON, E. Possible Importance of Transfer Factors in Bacterial Evolution. Nature 209, 637–638 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/209637a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/209637a0
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