Concluding Remarks
Our understanding of microbial gene transfer has evolved
through the use of the three approaches described in the
introduction. If understanding the mechanism of gene
transfer is important, then using a defined donor system
and the indigenous population as recipient is the best
approach. Gene transfer can be confirmed by detection of
the transferred DNA by probing. If the capability for transfer
to occur is important and the presence of donors needs to
be known, then adding a universal recipient to the system
is the best approach. If one doesn’t care at all about the
mechanism but that only a transfer has occurred throughout
the evolutionary history of the organism, then genome
analysis is the appropriate approach.