title: Impact of donor-recipient phylogenetic distance on bacterial genome transplantation.
abstract: Genome transplantation (GT) allows the installation of purified chromosomes into recipient cells, causing the resulting organisms to adopt the genotype and the phenotype conferred by the donor cells. This key process remains a bottleneck in synthetic biology, especially for genome engineering strategies of intractable and economically important microbial species. So far, this process has only been reported using two closely related bacteria, Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. capri (Mmc) and Mycoplasma capricolum subsp. capricolum (Mcap), and the main factors driving the compatibility between a donor genome and a recipient cell are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the impact of the evolutionary distance between donor and recipient species on the efficiency of GT. Using Mcap as the recipient cell, we successfully transplanted the genome of six bacteria belonging to the Spiroplasma phylogenetic group but including species of two distinct genera. Our results demonstrate that GT efficiency is inversely correlated with the phylogenetic distance between donor and recipient bacteria but also suggest that other species-specific barriers to GT exist. This work constitutes an important step toward understanding the cellular factors governing the GT process in order to better define and eventually extend the existing genome compatibility limit.
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France University of Bordeaux, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France.
authors.forename: Fabien
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Labroussaa
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France University of Bordeaux, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lebaudy
authors.affiliation: Université de Sherbrooke, Département de biologie, 2500 boulevard Université Sherbrooke (Québec), J1K 2R1, Canada.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Baby
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France University of Bordeaux, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France.
authors.forename: Géraldine
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gourgues
authors.affiliation: Université de Sherbrooke, Département de biologie, 2500 boulevard Université Sherbrooke (Québec), J1K 2R1, Canada.
authors.forename: Dominick
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Matteau
authors.affiliation: J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, MD 20850, USA.
authors.forename: Sanjay
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vashee
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France University of Bordeaux, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sirand-Pugnet
authors.affiliation: Université de Sherbrooke, Département de biologie, 2500 boulevard Université Sherbrooke (Québec), J1K 2R1, Canada.
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rodrigue
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France University of Bordeaux, UMR 1332 de Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, F-33140 Villenave d'Ornon, France clartigu@bordeaux.inra.fr.
authors.forename: Carole
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lartigue
mesh_terms: D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004261:DNA Replication / Q000235:genetics; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D005819:Genetic Markers; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D005838:Genotype; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional / Q000235:genetics; D045623:Mycoplasma capricolum / Q000235:genetics*; D009176:Mycoplasma mycoides / Q000235:genetics*; D010641:Phenotype; D010802:Phylogeny; D010957:Plasmids / Q000378:metabolism; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics; D014170:Transformation, Genetic
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D005819:Genetic Markers