Plasmidome recovery from metagenomes: why and how?

Question

[dark.lord]

Hi all,

Since a few days I am thinking about this - might there be any useful information in a bacterial community's plasmidome? And if so, how to recover the information?

It is well known that plasmids play a pivotal role in microbial evolution, as they can carry genes which might at some point be integrated into the host's genome, fostering genome plasticity and adaptation, and thus conferring a selective advantage.

It is possible to extract the plasmidome (Brown Kav et al., 2013), but there are very few studies using this approach.

Has anyone had the idea to isolate plasmids from environmental samples (soil, water column, deep-sea sediments, etc.)?

Answer 1

[h.mon]

might there be any useful information in a bacterial community's plasmidome?

Answer:

It is well known that plasmids play a pivotal role in microbial evolution, as they can carry genes which might at some point be integrated into the host's genome, fostering genome plasticity and adaptation, and thus conferring a selective advantage.

And if so, how to recover the information?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5408804/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5408804/