Cockroaches Absorbed 40,485 Bacterial DNA Fragments, Some Lasting 28.7 Million Years
Updated
Updated · ScienceAlert · Jun 19
Cockroaches Absorbed 40,485 Bacterial DNA Fragments, Some Lasting 28.7 Million Years
3 articles · Updated · ScienceAlert · Jun 19
Summary
University of Sydney-led researchers found 40,485 fragments of bacterial DNA embedded in 18 cockroach and termite genomes, with individual species carrying 93 to 4,900 inserts.
Blattabacterium cuenoti—the cockroach symbiont involved in nitrogen recycling—appears to have donated the DNA through horizontal gene transfer, a process rarely documented at this scale in complex animals.
Some inserts have persisted for at least 28.7 million years, and the total far exceeds the previous eukaryote record of fewer than 300 transfers.
The team says earlier studies likely missed many inserts because they focused on protein-coding genes rather than small non-coding fragments, leaving the biological effects in cockroaches still unknown.
The findings, published in PNAS, suggest symbiotic bacteria may be reshaping animal genomes more broadly than thought and could influence adaptation and speciation.