Study shows antibiotic resistance genes persist in E. coli through "genetic capitalism"

A new study analyzes the genomes of 29,255 E. coli strains collected between 1884 and 2018 to examine the evolution of 409 different genes that enable the bacterium to resist various antibiotics. The researchers examined whether the genes that confer antibiotic resistance, once acquired, tended to unusually accumulate -- a phenomenon known as "genetic capitalism" -- or disappear because they are unused, through a normal evolutionary process known as "stabilizing selection." Recently, genetic capitalism is found common.