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Gene transfer enables bacteria to adapt to their environment. To sensitively detect gene transfer, we created a synthetic biology tool that introduces an identifiable barcode into RNA when microbes exchange DNA. When applied in a wastewater community, high-throughput sequencing revealed which microbes in the community participated in gene transfer.
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References
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Thomas, C. M. & Nielsen, K. M. Mechanisms of, and barriers to, horizontal gene transfer between bacteria. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 3, 711–721 (2005). This review provides an overview of the mechanisms of horizontal gene transfer.
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Arnold, B. J., Huang, I.-T. & Hanage, W. P. Horizontal gene transfer and adaptive evolution in bacteria. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 20, 206–218 (2022). This review describes the mechanisms and evolutionary theory of bacterial adaptation through gene transfer.
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Sheth, R. U., Cabral, V., Chen, S. P. & Wang, H. H. Manipulating bacterial communities by in situ microbiome engineering. Trends Genet. 32, 189–200 (2016). This review discusses approaches and applications for in situ microbiome engineering.
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Brito, I. L. Examining horizontal gene transfer in microbial communities. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 19, 442–453 (2021). This review discusses laboratory techniques used to measure gene transfer.
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Rubin, B. E. et al. Species- and site-specific genome editing in complex bacterial communities. Nat. Microbiol. 7, 34–47 (2022). This paper describes the environmental transformation sequencing (ET-Seq) method for mapping and quantifying gene transfer.
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This is a summary of: Kalvapalle, P. B. et al. Information storage across a microbial community using universal RNA barcoding. Nat. Biotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02593-0 (2025).
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Sensitive detection of gene transfer in a microbial community.
Nat Biotechnol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02639-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02639-3
