Bacterial Conjugation in resistance transmission

[Apurva Tathe]

As I have previously discussed on the antibiotic uses , resistance and their community transmission and how that drug resistance is transferred in bacterial evolution over the years. Now we all know that resistance can be transferred in the same bacterial species but we know that there is a whole microbial flora on our skin not just one bacterial species, so how one bacterial species transfer this resistance to other bacterial species. So it is through horizontal gene transfer(simply uptake of free DNA or through phage transfer or conjugation). Conjugation simply means mating pair one is donor and one is recipient and transfers the drug resistance genes through pilus(mating bridge). Conjugation can happen within the same species as well as within other species. So think in terms of when you get antibiotic resistance, it's not just one species but a whole microbial community gets resistance over the years in the population.