Integrons

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Hey all, I'm doing an essay on drug resistance in bacteria and am looking up integrons and don't quite understand them.

One journal describes them as "assembly platforms that incorporate exogenous open reading frames (ORFs) by site-specific recombination and convert them to functional genes by ensuring their correct expression."

From this, I understand that they acquire genes from other bacteria/sources and then expresses them within the bacteria.

Would I be on the right track or am I way off?

@ScienceNerd;

In my opinion, you are pretty much on the balls re integrons (although it has been a while since i studied them) Yes, they do acquire orf's from other sources, and tend to assemble these newly acquired orf's in cassette-like structures and so on.
Last time i was in this field (~2003) this was at least how they were viewed then. One of the worlds experts on integrons (and so-called super-integrons typically found in Vibrio spp.) was a Dr Didier Mazel (pasteur institute, paris). Have a look a round for any of his relatively recent review papers on integrons - he writes about and explains them quite well (imho). If you require any further info, feel free to pm
Regards,
Lockman