Plasmids exhibit a broad range of sizes and copies per cell, and these two parameters appear to be negatively correlated. Here, Ramiro-Martínez et al. analyse the copy number of thousands of diverse bacterial plasmids in relation to their genomic context, hosts, and other features, and develop a universal scaling law that links copy number and plasmid size across bacterial species.
- Paula Ramiro-Martínez
- Ignacio de Quinto
- Jerónimo Rodríguez-Beltrán
