Asunto(s)
Bacteriología/historia , Enfermedades Transmisibles/historia , Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida/historia , Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida/virología , Animales , Bacterias/genética , Bacterias/patogenicidad , Evolución Biológica , Control de Enfermedades Transmisibles/historia , Enfermedades Transmisibles/epidemiología , Enfermedades Transmisibles/inmunología , Enfermedades Transmisibles/microbiología , Brotes de Enfermedades , Historia del Siglo XV , Historia del Siglo XVI , Historia del Siglo XVII , Historia del Siglo XVIII , Historia del Siglo XIX , Historia del Siglo XX , Historia Medieval , Humanos , Sistema Inmunológico/fisiología , Biología Molecular/historia , Virulencia , Virus/genética , Virus/patogenicidadAsunto(s)
Enfermedades Transmisibles , Predicción , Antibacterianos/uso terapéutico , Antivirales/uso terapéutico , Infecciones Bacterianas/tratamiento farmacológico , Infecciones Bacterianas/transmisión , Control de Enfermedades Transmisibles , Enfermedades Transmisibles/epidemiología , Enfermedades Transmisibles/microbiología , Enfermedades Transmisibles/transmisión , ADN/genética , Humanos , Mutación/genética , Salud Pública , Virosis/tratamiento farmacológicoRESUMEN
The term "plasmid" was introduced 45 years ago (J. Lederberg, 1952, Physiol. Rev. 32, 403-430) as a generic term for any extrachromosomal genetic particle. It was intended to clarify the classification of agents that had been thought of disjunctively as parasites, symbionts, organelles, or genes. For a decade or more it was confused with "episome," although that was carefully crafted (F. Jacob and E. L. Wollman, 1958, C. R. Acad. Sci. 247, 154-156) to mean agents with traffic in and out of chromosomes. Starting about 1970, plasmids became important reagents in molecular genetic research and biotechnology. They also play a cardinal role in the evolution of microbial resistance and of pathogenicity. The usage of the term has then escalated to its current peak of about 3000 published articles per year. The bedrock of genetic mechanism is no longer mitosis and meiosis of chromosomes; it is template-directed DNA assembly. This is often more readily studied and managed with the use of plasmids, which replicate autonomously outside the chromosomes. Some plasmids are also episomes, namely, they interact with the chromosomal genome, and other mobile elements may be transposed from one chromosomal locus to another without replicating autonomously.
Asunto(s)
Plásmidos/historia , Animales , Historia del Siglo XX , Orgánulos , Plásmidos/fisiología , Simbiosis , Terminología como AsuntoRESUMEN
The basic principles of genetics and evolution apply equally to human hosts and to emerging infections, in which foodborne outbreaks play an important and growing role. However, we are dealing with a very complicated coevolutionary process in which infectious agent outcomes range from mutual annihilation to mutual integration and resynthesis of a new species. In our race against microbial evolution, new molecular biology tools will help us study the past; education and a global public health perspective will help us deal better with the future.