Bacterial genetic determinants that control horizontal transfer of genes for degradation of environmental pollutants

细菌质粒的接合转移在宿主细胞的快速适应和进化中发挥着重要作用。然而，控制转移宿主范围的因素，即限制转移到一个物种内的特定受体菌株，仍不清楚。本研究利用编码环境污染物降解性状的两种质粒对这些因素进行了研究，发现接合过程中的交配对形成以及受体细胞中各种代谢的调节系统参与限制质粒的接合转移。

Conjugative transfer of bacterial plasmids plays an important role in rapid adaptation and evolution of host cells. However, the factors governing the host range of transfer, i.e., limited transfer to specific recipient strains within a species, remain unclear. In this study, such factors were investigated using the two plasmids encoding the traits for degradation of environmental pollutants, and the mating pair-formation in the conjugation process and a regulatory system for various metabolisms in the recipient cells were found to be involved in restricting the conjugative transfer of the plasmids.