In a recent study published in Cell, researchers used a multi-omics approach to profile the gut microbiomes and metabolomes of mothers and infants to determine the vertical and horizontal transmission ...

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a microbial community phenomenon that essentially equates to teaching neighbors how to complete necessary tasks by ripping out and sharing ...

Recent research highlights the significant role of viruses on plastic surfaces in spreading antibiotic resistance, urging for ...

Plastics entering natural environments quickly become coated with microbial biofilms called the 'plastisphere', known to be ...

The movement or acquisition of genetic material between organisms that is not the result of vertical inheritance (reproduction) is called horizontal (or lateral) gene transfer. Horizontal gene ...

A research team shows that environmentally relevant antibiotic levels can greatly accelerate the spread of antibiotic resistance genes.A research ...

When the human genome was first published, the suggestion that it contained bacterial genes was controversial. Subsequent studies questioned the possibility of HGT, offering alternate explanations for ...

Gut bacteria evolve rapidly in response to different diets, UCLA evolutionary biologists report in a new study. The ...

The gut microbiome is complex, and can be affected by the things we eat, our physical habits, our genes, and other factors.

Viruses living on plastic surfaces could be contributing to the spread of antibiotic resistance, raising global environmental ...

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the transfer of genetic material between distinct species, a process that plays a major role in the evolution of a genome. There is an increasing body of evidence for ...