Mechanisms of Transforming DNA Uptake to the Periplasm of Bacillus subtilis

Abstract

Transformation is a widely distributed mechanism of bacterial horizontal gene transfer that plays a role in the spread of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes and more generally in evolution. Although transformation was discovered nearly a century ago and most, if not all the proteins required have been identified in several bacterial species, much remains poorly understood about the molecular mechanism of DNA uptake.