Isolation of Orbaceae from wild-caught flies in Central Texas

The Orbaceae are a recently-described family of insect specialist bacteria. To our knowledge, there are no cultured isolates or complete genome sequences from Orbaceae definitively isolated from wild-caught flies. Flies, especially those in the genus Drosophila, are of considerable experimental importance, and prior work with bee-associated Orbaceae has demonstrated that these bacteria provide benefits to their host and can be genetically engineered, facilitating experimentation. Thus, the objective of this project is to culture novel strains of Orbaceae from wild-caught flies in Central Texas and gather whole-genome sequencing data for these isolates.