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Mystery find of microbial DNA elements called Borgs

Microorganisms store some genetic information on non-chromosomal elements. The emergence of a surprising version of these elements shifts our understanding of their diversity and potential roles.
  1. Christian Rinke

    1. Christian Rinke is at the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.

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Most microorganisms have a single chromosome that harbours almost all of their genetic information1,2. Extra genomic information is frequently encoded in non-chromosomal DNA segments called extrachromosomal elements (ECEs), which exist in the form of structures such as plasmids that consist of DNA in a linear or circular form. Writing in Nature, Al-Shayeb et al.3 report the discovery of unusually large ECEs containing numerous and diverse genes that encode proteins involved in metabolic activity. The authors hypothesize that these ECEs increase the capacity of their microbial hosts to consume the greenhouse gas methane.

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Nature 610, 635-637 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02975-3

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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