Starting a New Genetic System: Lessons from Bacteroides

Despite the fact that genetic manipulation is an essential adjunct of studies of microbial physiology, many important bacterial species are still not accessible to genetic manipulation. In many cases, the people who know the organism best and have studied its physiology extensively have little experience with genetic techniques and are uncertain how to set up a new system. In this article, we describe what we have learned in the process of developing a genetic system for Bacteroides spp. and helping to develop genetic tools for two related species of bacteria: Porphromonas gingivalis and Prevotella ruminicola. We discuss the relative usefulness of different types of genetic tools and make some suggestions about how to construct them.