Stress-Induced, Highly Efficient, Donor Cell-Dependent Cell-to-Cell Natural Transformation in Bacillus subtilis.

ABSTRACT: Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a driving force for bacterial evolution that occurs via conjugation, transduction, and transformation. Whereas conjugation and transduction depend on nonbacterial vehicles, transformation is considered a naturally occurring process in which naked DNA molecules are taken up by a competent recipient cell. Here, we report that HGT occurred between two Bacillus subtilis strains cocultured on a minimum medium agar plate for 10 h. This process was almost completely resistant to DNase treatment and appeared to require close proximity between cells. The deletion of comK in the recipient completely abolished gene transfer, indicating that the process involved transformation. This process was also highly efficient, reaching 1.75 × 106 transformants/μg DNA compared t

SUBMITTER: Zhang X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6088163 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature