<i>Acinetobacter</i> —the bad, the ugly, but also the good!

The genus <i>Acinetobacter</i> is vast and diverse regarding its hosts. However, it is best known as an opportunistic pathogen that causes hard-to-treat nosocomial infections. Yet, some species of the genus can be beneficial for some hosts. Such is the case of <i>Acinetobacter calcoaceticus</i>, which can have a significant impact on tomato plants, as was recently shown in a paper by Robertson et al. (S. Robertson, A. Mosca, S. Ashraf, A. Corral, et al., mSphere 11:e00842-25, 2026, https://doi.org/10.1128/msphere.00842-25). Importantly, that study also exemplifies how metagenomics in general, but metagenome-assembled genomes in particular, can be employed to understand the functional specialization and identity of the bacterial species dwelling in particular environments.