Old-school plant mutation trick now works on hidden bacteria
Penunuri G, Pepper-Tunick E, McBroome J, Corbett-Detig R, Russell SL
Crispr
The same chemical mutagen gardeners' grandparents might recognize from old plant-breeding programs just got a bacteria hiding inside insect cells to reveal its genetic secrets, a step that could sharpen tools for controlling crop and garden pests carried by insects.
Wolbachia is a bacterium that lives only inside insect cells and has been nearly impossible to study genetically because it can't be grown alone in a lab. Researchers borrowed a decades-old technique from plant and animal genetics, a chemical called EMS that causes random mutations, and paired it with an ultra-precise DNA sequencing method to actually spot those new mutations even though they were rare. This gives scientists a long-missing tool to start editing and understanding these bacteria, which matters because some strains are already used to fight mosquito-borne diseases.
Key Findings
EMS treatment produced a clear, detectable mutation signal in Wolbachia genomes despite mutations occurring at very low frequency in the cell population
Circle sequencing, an ultra-low error rate technique, was required to distinguish true EMS-induced SNPs from standard sequencing background noise
Mutations showed the classic EMS signature of enriched C/G to T/A transitions, and the team built a model predicting mutation rates by genomic sequence context
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists successfully used a classic chemical mutagen to create detectable mutations inside Wolbachia, a bacterium that lives inside insect cells and can't be grown in a lab dish on its own. This opens a path toward genetically engineering these bacteria for uses like mosquito-borne disease control.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
EMS mutation and SNP detection in intracellular Wolbachia genomes.
Endosymbiotic bacteria such as Wolbachia pose significant challenges to genetic and molecular investigation due to their obligate intracellular lifestyle and complex growth requirements. Current un...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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