Do bacteria swap genes in deadly game?
In 1982, contaminated hamburger meat triggered a rash of violent illness in the United States and signaled that a bacterial friend of people had turned foe. The culprit turned out to be a virulent strain of Escherichia coli, normally a helpful resident of the lower intestine (SN: 7/22/00, p. 53).
Now, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have decoded the genome of the dangerous strain and compared it with the DNA sequence of its far more common, mild-mannered cousin (SN: 2/8/97, p. 84).