Year: 2022

NON-VERTICAL TRANSFER. “Because HT is often responsible for the initial colonization of genomes by TEs, HT must be regarded as an important process in eukaryotic evolution.” (TE = transposable elements, jumping genes); (HT = horizontal transfer). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X17301685 View in LinkedIn

INNOVATION AND MALFUNCTION. “Numerous studies in mammalian genomes showing how ERV-derived sequences have been a recurrent source of new coding or regulatory sequences promoting a multitude of cellular functions as well as dysfunctions.” (ERV= Endogenous retroviruses). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X17301685 View in LinkedIn

FOREIGN GENE CONTRIBUTION. “In insects for example, it was estimated that ∼2% of the nuclear genome on average (and up to 24%) derives from horizontally-transferred TEs, a figure that likely remains a gross underestimate. The picture is similar in bats where at least 6% of the Myotis lucifugus genome derives from horizontally-acquired Helitrons.” (TE = transposable elements, jumping genes). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X17301685 View in LinkedIn

TOO MUCH JARGON. The key for the remainder of today’s posts. (ERV= Endogenous retroviruses); (TE = transposable elements, jumping genes); (HT = horizontal transfer); (HTT = horizontal transfer of TEs). View in LinkedIn

VIRAL IMPACT ON EVOLUTION. “Recent large-scale analyses suggest that HTT is pervasive in plants and animals and instrumental to the long-term evolutionary persistence of most types of TE.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X17301685 View in LinkedIn

DRIVER OF NEW SPECIES. “It has long been hypothesized that TEs could drive host diversification, reinforce population divergence, and promote reproductive isolation (for instance through processes akin to hybrid dysgenesis), ultimately leading to speciation.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X17301685 View in LinkedIn

NEW VIEW. “I contend that it is precisely the elaboration of epigenetic mechanisms from their prokaryotic origins as suppressors of genetic exchanges that underlies both the genome expansion and the proliferation of TEs characteristic of higher eukaryotes. This is the inverse of the prevailing view that epigenetic mechanisms evolved to control the disruptive potential of TEs.” http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6108/758 View in LinkedIn

MASSIVE AND MESSY ORIGIN. “The evidence that TEs shape eukaryotic genomes is by now incontrovertible. My thesis, then, is that TEs and the transposases they encode underlie the evolvability of higher eukaryotes' massive, messy genomes.” http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6108/758 View in LinkedIn

AT THE HEART OF GENE EVOLUTION. “Transposons contribute to creating genes, modifying them, and programming and reprogramming them. Many transposons and retroelements contain captured gene fragments and can be part of gene regulatory regions.” http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6108/758 View in LinkedIn

HOST-PARASITE COLLABORATION. “The traffic in genes and regulatory sequences is bidirectional: Transposons pick up bits and pieces of genes that code for proteins other than transposases, and transposase genes are pressed into services other than transposition.” http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6108/758 View in LinkedIn