This video, we're going to begin our lesson on bacterial transformation, a type of horizontal gene transfer. And so recall from our previous lesson videos once again that transformation is a type of horizontal gene transfer that's characterized by the uptake of free or naked DNA in the environment by the cell. And so the cell is able to uptake free or naked DNA from the environment, and that is called transformation. Now, in order for a cell to transform DNA, it must be known as a competent cell. And a competent cell is really describing a really complex physiological state.

And so, competent cells are really cells that have the ability to transform DNA from the environment, in other words, uptake naked DNA from the environment. If a cell is not competent, then it will not be able to transform DNA. And so if we take a look at our image down below, notice that it's distinguishing competent cells versus non-competent cells. And so notice the cell that's over here on the left is a totally competent cell. And again, competency is describing a really complex physiological state, but in the end, competent cells have the ability to transform or uptake DNA from the environment.

And so notice that this cell is able to transform naked DNA from the environment. And so this naked DNA is just this bare DNA that you see here, and it's able to transform it or uptake that naked DNA. So you can see the naked DNA is able to make its way into the cell because the cell is competent. However, a cell that is not competent, like this one over here, notice is not able to uptake DNA. It's not able to transform DNA, and so the DNA is not able to get into the cell if it's not competent.

And so only competent cells are capable of transformation. Now, cells can actually be either naturally competent or cells can be induced to be competent by chemical treatment. And so some chemical treatments can induce cells to become more competent and allow them to transform or uptake external DNA. And so this here concludes our brief lesson or our brief intro to bacterial transformation and competent cells, and we'll be able to learn more about transformation as we continue to move forward in our course. So I'll see you all in our next video.