Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction to Plasmids: Selective View of Their History, Donald R. Helinski

I. Plasmid Replication Systems

• 2. Participating Elements in the Replication of Iteron-Containing Plasmids, Ricardo Kruger, Sheryl A. Rakowski, and Marcin Filutowicz
• 3. Plasmid Replication Control by Antisense RNAs, Sabine Brantl
• 4. Rolling-Circle Replication, Saleem A. Khan

II. Plasmid Maintenance and Inheritance

• 5. Partition Systems of Bacterial Plasmids, Barbara E. Funnell and Roderick A. Slavcev
• 6. Genetic Addiction: a Principle of Gene Symbiosis in a Genome, Ichizo Kobayashi
• 7. DNA Site-Specific Resolution Systems, Bernard Hallet, Virginie Vanhooff, and Francois Cornet
• 8. Topological Behavior of Plasmid DNA, N. Patrick Higgins and Alexander V. Vologodskii
• 9. Bacterial Conjugation in Gram-Negative Bacteria, Trevor Lawley, Brian M. Wilkins, and Laura S. Frost
• 10. Conjugation in Gram-Positive Bacteria, Don B. Clewell and M. Victoria Francia

III. Specific Plasmid Systems

• 11. Plasmid Strategies for Broad-Host-Range Replication in Gram-Negative Bacteria, Aresa Toukdarian
• 12. The Symbiotic Plasmids of the Rhizobiaceae, David Romero and Susana Brown
• 13. Linear Plasmids in Bacteria: Common Origins, Uncommon Ends, Philip Stewart, Patricia A. Rosa,  and Kit Tilly
• 14. The 2um Plasmid of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Makkuni Jayaram, XianMei Yang, Shwetal Mehta, Yuri Voziyanov, and Soundarapandian Velmurugan
• 15. Viral Plasmids in Mammalian Cells, Lori Frappier
• 16. Degradative Plasmids, Naota Ogawa, Ananda M. Chakrabarty, and Olga Zaborina
• 17. Archaeal Plasmids, Roger A. Garrett, Peter Redder, Bo Greve, Kim Brugger, Lanming Chen, and Qunxin She

IV. Virulence and Antibiotic Resistance Plasmids

• 18. Genome-Scale Analysis of Virulence Plasmids: the Contribution of Plasmid-Borne Virulence Genes in Enterobacterial Pathogenesis, Malabi M. Venkatesan and Valerie Burland
• 19. Virulence Plasmids of Spore-Forming Bacteria, Julian I. Rood
• 20. Virulence Plasmids of Yersinia: Characteristics and Comparison, Luther E. Lindler
• 21. Virulence Plasmids of Nonsporulating Gram-Positive Pathogens, Chris M. Pillar and Michael S. Gilmore
• 22. The Agrobacterium Ti Plasmids, Peter J. Christie
• 23. Antibiotic Resistance Plasmids, Diane E. Taylor, Amera Gibreel, Trevor D. Lawley, and Dobryan M. Tracz
• 24. Plasmids pJM1 and PColV-K30 Harbor Iron Uptake Genes That Are Essential for Bacterial Virulence, Jorge H. Crosa

V. Plasmid Ecology and Evolution

• 25. Evolution and Population Genetics of Bacterial Plasmids, Christopher M. Thomas
• 26. Second Chromosomes and Megaplasmids in Bacteria, Shawn R. MacLellan, Christopher D. Sibley, and Turlough M. Finan

VI. Plasmids as Genetic Tools

• 27. Plasmid Vectors for Gene Cloning and Expression, Quinn Lu
• 28. Plasmids as Genetic Tools for Stuyd of Bacterial Gene Function, Gregory J. Phillips
• 29. Plasmids as Tools for Containment, Begona Torres, Jose L. Garcia, and Eduardo Diaz