Mobilisation and remobilisation of a large archetypal pathogenicity island of uropathogenic Escherichia coli in vitrosupport the role of conjugation for horizontal transfer of genomic islands

Abstract

Our results corroborate that mobilisation and conjugal transfer may contribute to evolution of bacterial pathogens through horizontal transfer of large chromosomal regions such as PAIs. Stabilisation of these mobile genetic elements in the bacterial chromosome result from selective loss of mobilisation and transfer functions of genomic islands.