The Hatfull lab, as part of a larger collaboration, recently published “Genome editing of phylogenetically distinct bacteria using cross-species retron-mediated recombineering” in Nature Biotechnology. This study expands retron-mediated genome editing well beyond E. coli. The authors show that “recombitrons”, engineered retrons that generate single-stranded DNA donor templates paired with recombineering proteins, can edit genomes across 15 diverse bacterial species. Editing was functional in every species tested and the work highlights both the portability and host-specific optimization needs of retron editing, while providing a powerful route toward programmable genome engineering in non-model bacteria.
Take a look: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-026-03076-6