Abstract
The concept of gene transfer among prokaryotes has been around for quite a while. Griffith (1928) transformed an attenuated and nonencapsulated Pneumococcus culture (type R) into a fully encapsulated and virulent Pneumococcus strains (type S) long before anyone knew that the material underlying transformation in Griffith’s experiment was DNA (Avery et al. 1944) or how prokaryotes shuttle DNA from one cell to another. Lederberg and Tatum (1946) discovered conjugational transfer of DNA between Escherichia coli cells. Zinder and Lederberg (1952) discovered transduction (phage-mediated gene transfer) during a study of recombination in Salmonella strains (Zinder and Lederberg 1952). Gene transfer agents, nonvirulent phage-like DNA-vehicles, were discovered in the early 1970s (Marrs 1974; Solioz et al. 1975). Those mechanisms of gene transfer in prokaryotes turned out to be the mechanisms of prokaryote genetics. The process of generating new gene combinations in prokaryotes is not a process of reciprocal gene exchange, it is a process of unidirectional spread of genes from donors to recipients.
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