Global epistasis in plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria is a major public health threat, with conjugative plasmids playing a key role in gene dissemination. Genome sequencing has improved our understanding of plasmid distribution, but predicting future plasmid-bacteria associations remains limited. Global epistasis patterns, which enable predictability, hold the potential to predict interactions between plasmids and bacterial genomes. This study uses data to identify global epistasis patterns and mechanistic models to generate new hypotheses.