Month: September 2022

DEATH AS A FUNCTION OF PROPAGATION. “Encoding an executioner and an inhibitor of the executioner just made them good at propagating themselves." Mull on that one. http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn

DEATH IS LACK OF REPRESSION. "A surprising view of programmed cell death emerges when one fully realizes that it is not the expression of the programmed cell death module that induces cell suicide, but its repression; self-destruction in Escherichia coli is a phenotype that results from the regulated repression (in response to environmental signals) of a self-addiction genetic module encoding a toxin and an antidote." http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn

BREAKING COUPLING SYMMETRY. "Bacillus subtilis represents an example (rather than an exception) of the intercellular communication that may operate (maybe in a more stochastic manner) in most single-celled organisms, and may allow the breaking of symmetry required for the coupling of programmed cell death to survival at the level of the colony. The view presented here implies that it is also one of the crucial mechanisms that has allowed the emergence of an evolutionarily stable form of programmed cell death." http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn

DEATH CENTRAL. "The mitochondria appear to be a locus of clustering of several of the main players in the execution and regulation of programmed cell death." (And of ancient bacterial origin, the hand on the switch). http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn

HOUSE OF DEATH. "There is convincing evidence that mitochondria are central regulators of apoptosis." https://lnkd.in/eHAe7rF View in LinkedIn

CELL DEATH COORDINATOR. "In many cases, apoptotic signals are transmitted to mitochondria, which act as integrators of cell death because both effector and regulatory molecules converge at this organelle." The mitochondria was of bacterial origin and is semi-autonomous. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1097276502004422 View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE examines the triad of the bacteria Wolbachia that lives as a parasite within insect cells, and the virus that preys on Wolbachia, a bacteriophage (phage). Wolbachia is a rather extraordinary creature in itself, but this combination is a genetic melting pot, in surprising directions. Usually, a parasite steals key genes from its host, but do not cross domains. Here we see that this sharing is wider than previously thought. View in LinkedIn

ABUNDANT AND UBIQUITOUS. "Viruses are the most abundant and diverse biological entities in the biosphere. Infecting organisms across the tree of life, they associate with every ecosystem on the planet." https://lnkd.in/dG3vir9 View in LinkedIn

DOMAIN-SPECIFICITY. "While any cellular domain can be infected by a virus, no extant virus is known to traverse more than one domain. This domain-specific ecology of viruses underpins the current taxonomic paradigm of trifurcating viruses into eukaryotic, archaeal and bacterial categories, along with recent reappraisals of whether viruses constitute a fourth domain of life." https://lnkd.in/dG3vir9 View in LinkedIn

HIJACKING HOST GENES. "As a result of this domain-specific ecology, viruses often integrate host genes via specific highways of lateral gene transfer. Eukaryotic viruses tend to hijack genes directly from their eukaryotic hosts to evade, manipulate and counter-strike antiviral immune responses, with the exception of some giant viruses that appear to acquire genes from all domains of life." https://lnkd.in/dG3vir9 View in LinkedIn