Ecología de los plásmidos pequeños tipo ColE1 y su implicación en la resistencia a antibióticos

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the major sanitary threats that society has ever faced. The massive use of these compounds in both human and veterinary medicine has led to the selection and dissemination of multidrug-resistant bacteria, threatening Public Health worldwide. Part of this crisis is caused by the extraordinary adaptability of bacteria. Through a process called Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT), bacteria previously sensitive to an antimicrobial are able to develop resistance by acquiring genetic material from other microorganisms.Plasmids are the main mobile genetic elements responsible for the dissemination of resistance genes between bacteria via HGT. These elements show a remarkable prevalence within microbial populations, where they exhibit a huge diversity. Among all, this PhD dissertation focus on the study of the ColE1-like plasmid family. This family includes small, multicopy and mobilizable plasmids, with a narrow host-range, traditionally associated to Enterobacterales. The early discovery of these plasmids, together with their multicopy nature, has turned them into the most used vectors in modern molecular biology. Notwithstanding, their study in wild-type isolates and populations has been largely neglected...