Flippable DNA switches help bacteria resist antibiotics and are more common than thought
Friday, January 11, 2019 - 09:50
in Biology & Nature
Bacteria have a number of well-known tricks available to them to adapt to changing environments, such as mutation and sharing snippets of DNA with each other. Less studied is a mechanism that allows bacteria to hedge their bets against rapid environmental changes by fine tuning their use of particular genes or pathways, a process known as "phase variation."