Friday, 10 July 2009

genetics - What is the distinction between F' plasmid and R plasmid?

If I understand the nomenclature correctly, an R plasmid is just any plasmid containing an antibiotic (R)esistance gene (eg. Amp, Kan, Cm, etc.). It's a bit of an outdated name from when people didn't know how exactly the plasmids conferred such resistance.



An F-plasmid is any plasmid that contains the genes necessary for (F)ertility, eg:horizontal gene transfer via the tra operon.



The two do not have to appear together -- eg: Many F plamids will contain resistance genes (along with other random chunks from the genome), but resistance doesn't always have to be part of the payload. Likewise, it is common in labs to build pure resistance vectors that lack any horizontal transfer capability in order to select for particular clones.

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