EXPLORING HORIZONTAL RNA TRANSFER IN BACTERIA

Horizontal gene (DNA) transfer (HGT) is a ubiquitous phenomenon in bacteria and is often associated with the spread of bacterial antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity. However, horizontal RNA transfer (HRT) between bacterial cells remains an understudied, possibility. Therefore, we tested whether bacteria can release and horizontally transfer RNA as an efficient strategy for intraspecies and interspecies communication. High throughput RNA sequencing indicated that exogenous RNA fragments were found in B. subtilis cells mutually cultured with but physically separated from Escherichia coli and Bacillus simplex cells with a bias towards functional non-coding RNAs. We hypothesized that extracellular membrane vesicles mediate HRT as they have the capacity to protect the unstable molecules RNA from the environment, and to transfer cargos from cell to cell. We successfully purified vesicles from various conditions where B. subtilis relied on public goods for their success. Preliminary results show that the vesicles contain some small RNA molecules. Our future plans are to characterize the molecules and check if the content of the vesicles is condition dependent. This may reveal a novel modality and mechanism for bacterial multicellular communications.