Bacterial genetics and molecular pathogenesis in the age of high throughput DNA sequencing

Abstract

When Stanley Falkow introduced Molecular Koch's Postulates (Falkow, 1988) as a conceptual framework to identify microbial factors that contributed to disease, he reaffirmed the prominent role that the basic principles of genetic analysis should play in defining genotype-phenotype associations in microbial pathogens. In classical bacterial genetics the nature of mutations is inferred through cis-trans complementation and by indirectly mapping their relative position and physical distance through recombination frequencies - all of which were made possible by the genetic tools of the day: natural transformations, conjugation and transduction. Unfortunately, many of these genetic tools are not always available to study pathogenic bacteria. The recombinant DNA revolution in the 1980s launched the field of molecular pathogenesis as genes could be treated as physical units that could be cut, spliced and transplanted from one microbe to another and thus not only 'prove' that an individual gene complemented a virulence defect in a mutant strain but also could impart pathogenic properties to otherwise benign microbes. The recombinant DNA revolution also enabled the generation of newer versions of genetic tools to generate mutations and engineer microbial genomes. The last decade has ushered in next generation sequencing technologies as a new powerful tool for bacterial genetics. The routine and inexpensive sequencing of microbial genomes has increased the number and phylogenetic scope of microbes that are amenable to functional characterization and experimentation. In this review, we highlight some salient advances in this rapidly evolving area.