Horizontal Gene Transfer?

Question

I understand the different ways bacteria can undergo horizontal gene transfer (transformation, transduction (phages), conjugation (plasmids)). Is there an experimental method to tell how a specific gene got into the host (during evolution)? For example if a gene A got into host X from species Y, is it possible to know how gene A was transmitted?

Answer 1

Unfortunately no. However, this would be a really great question to answer. I am confident in saying that teams of researchers are working on this question. However, one significant barrier would be if a research team shows a particular gene was transferred one way in a laboratory setting, it would be difficult to make the assumption that throughout the entire evolutionary time period, this was the sole means in which the gene was transferred. But good question none the less.