Bacterial Gene Transfer: A Genetics Assignment Overview

This assignment delves into the fascinating world of bacterial gene transfer. It explores various mechanisms, including lysogenic conversion, which involves phage integration and its subsequent effects on the host cell. The assignment also covers transduction, where viral vectors facilitate the transfer of genetic material between bacteria, highlighting both specialized and longitudinal transduction processes. Furthermore, the assignment examines transformation, the direct uptake of external genetic material by bacterial cells, and conjugation, the direct transfer of genetic material between bacteria through cell-to-cell contact. The assignment highlights the importance of these processes in bacterial genetics and their implications. References include Engelkirk, Duben-Engelkirk & Burton (2011) and Silveira et al. (2020).

Running head: GENETICS
GENETICS
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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GENETICS
Lysogenic conversion –
Temperate phage pass through two or more life cycles upon entering a host cell. This
conversion begins by host lysis and the progeny phage release (Silveira et al., 2020). Lytic
growth results in lysis of the host and release of progeny phage. Then the integration of the
phage DNA in the chromosome of the plasmids occurs that again affect the process further,
again (Engelkirk, Duben-Engelkirk & Burton, 2011). This helps in stable style of replication
of the plasmid. In lysogenic stage, the gene products are dominant before entering lytic cycle.
The conversion has effect, however on the phenotype of the host cell. This is known as
lysogenic conversion.
Transduction
Transduction is biological process in which the DNA that is foreign is put into the
bacterial cell with the action of a vector that is viral. Horizontal type of gene transfer is
critical and it is highly critical to understand, that in transduction a gene is transferred from
bacteria to another with the help of a virus. The process is also referred to as mobilizing of
the bacterial gene that is again done by a phage. In specialized transduction, a special set of
the restricted genes (bacterial) are transferred from one bacterium to the other. Long bacterial
segments are transferred from one bacterium to another in longitudinal transduction.
Transformation
In the field of molecular biology, direct incorporation and uptake of the external
genetic material occurs through the actual bacterial cell membrane, resulting in cellular
genetic transformation – the process is called transformation.
Conjugation.

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GENETICS
In molecular biology, conjugation is a process in which the genetic material is
transferred from one bacterium to another bacterium by direct contact. There is a donor and a
recipient bacterium.

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GENETICS
References
Engelkirk, P. G., Duben-Engelkirk, J. L., & Burton, G. R. W. (2011). Burton's microbiology
for the health sciences. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Silveira, C. B., Coutinho, F. H., Cavalcanti, G. S., Benler, S., Doane, M. P., Dinsdale, E.
A., ... & Rohwer, F. L. (2020). Genomic and ecological attributes of marine
bacteriophages encoding bacterial virulence genes. BMC Genomics, 21(1), 1-11.