Leonie-Alexa Koch

A step toward synthetic endosymbiosis: introducing Escherichia coli and the trypanosomatid endosymbiont Candidatus Kinetoplastibacterium crithidii into mammalian cells using a polyethylene glycol-based fusion protocol

Synthetic endosymbiosis, the deliberate introduction of bacteria into eukaryotic host cells, provides a tractable model for how endosymbiotic relationships become established, and a route to cells with new metabolic capabilities that never evolved naturally in that lineage. Current methods for introducing bacteria into...