Bacteriophages (phages) are ubiquitous in nature. These viruses play a number of central roles in microbial ecology and evolution by, for instance, promoting horizontal gene transfer (HGT) among bacterial species. The ability of phages to mediate HGT through transduction has been widely exploited as an experimental tool for the genetic study of bacteria. As such, bacteriophage P1 represents a prototypical generalized transducing phage with a broad host range that has been extensively employed in the genetic manipulation of Escherichia coli and a number of other model bacterial species. Here we demonstrate that P1 is capable of infecting, lysogenizing, and promoting transduction in members of the bacterial genus Sodalis, including the maternally inherited insect endosymbiont Sodalis glossinidius. While establishing new tools for the genetic study of these bacterial species, our results suggest that P1 may be used to deliver DNA to many Gram-negative endosymbionts in their insect host, thereby circumventing a culturing requirement to genetically manipulate these organisms.

中文翻译：

---

通过 DNA 转导对 Sodalis 物种进行遗传修饰

噬菌体（噬菌体）在自然界中无处不在。例如，这些病毒通过促进细菌物种之间的水平基因转移 (HGT) 在微生物生态学和进化中发挥着许多核心作用。噬菌体通过转导介导 HGT 的能力已被广泛用作细菌遗传研究的实验工具。因此，噬菌体 P1 代表具有广泛宿主范围的原型广义转导噬菌体，已广泛用于大肠杆菌和许多其他模型细菌物种的遗传操作。在这里，我们证明 P1 能够感染、溶原化和促进细菌属Sodalis成员的转导，包括母系遗传的昆虫内共生体Sodalis glossinidius。在为这些细菌物种的遗传研究建立新工具的同时，我们的结果表明，P1 可用于将 DNA 传递给昆虫宿主中的许多革兰氏阴性内共生体，从而绕过对这些生物进行基因操作的培养要求。