Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY

Harnessing undomesticated life

Nature Microbiology volume 4, pages 212–213 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Only a tiny fraction of bacterial species can be cultured and engineered in the laboratory, limiting our ability to deploy bacteria in harsh environments or use them to produce important compounds. Recent work has opened this frontier by developing new methods to characterize and engineer diverse, undomesticated bacterial species.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Engineering of ‘wild’ bacteria.

References

  1. Lloyd, K. G., Steen, A. D., Ladau, J., Yin, J. & Crosby, L. mSystems. https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00055-18 (2018).

  2. Brophy, J. A. N. et al. Nat. Microbiol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0216-5 (2018)..

  3. Peters, J. M. et al. Nat. Microbiol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0327-z (2019).

  4. Levine, D. P. Vancomycin: a history. Clin. Infect. Dis. 42, S5–S12 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Kaeberlein, T., Lewis, K. & Epstein, S. S. Science 296, 1127–1129 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Ling, L. L. et al. Nature 517, 455–459 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Hazen, T. C. et al. Science 330, 204–208 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Elizabeth A. Libby & Pamela A. Silver

  2. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    Elizabeth A. Libby & Pamela A. Silver

Authors
  1. Elizabeth A. Libby
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pamela A. Silver
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pamela A. Silver.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Libby, E.A., Silver, P.A. Harnessing undomesticated life. Nat Microbiol 4, 212–213 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0355-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0355-8

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Microbiology

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Microbiology newsletter — what matters in microbiology research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Microbiology