Abstract:Many bacterial genes encode proteins that are secreted extracellularly. These proteins can be considered cooperative because all surrounding cells can benefit from their production. Therefore, it has been hypothesized that these cooperative genes would more frequently lie on mobile elements, such as plasmids, which can transfer to other cells. This could stabilise cooperation, leading to the prediction that plasmids should carry proportionally more cooperative genes than the less mobile chromosome. However, it… Show more
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