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VIRUSES BUILD GENOMES of other species, at a significant rate. "Their contribution to mammalian genomes is probably underestimated because TEs have diverged beyond recognition. Most of them are inactivated by mutations so that they cannot replicate. They make up one third of our genome." (TE = transposable elements). https://lnkd.in/eGaw2Kq View in LinkedIn

OTHER MECHANISMS. "Cis-regulatory changes can evolve de novo by accumulation of mutations in cis-regulatory elements, or can be altered by increases in number and function of transcription factor (TF) binding sites following gene or whole-genome duplication events." https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

OTHER FUNCTIONAL MUTATIONS. "As changes in the coding region, especially of transcription factors, can cause downstream changes within a GRN that result in spatial and/or temporal alterations in gene expression, a mutation does not have to be in a regulatory region to cause a heritable regulatory change. Thus, while regulatory changes in gene expression are a major factor in evodevo, these changes may be caused by different types of functional mutations." (GRN = gene regulatory network). https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

"THE REGULATORY HYPOTHESIS predicts that phenotypic evolution is, in most cases, associated with changes in gene expression. Unlike the more stringent cis-regulatory hypothesis championed by Carroll, the more general regulatory hypothesis makes no clear prediction about the molecular nature of the genetic changes underlying regulatory evolution (i.e. whether they are cis or trans), emphasizing only that regulation is key to developmental evolution." https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

COMPARATIVE REGULATORY NETWORKS. "We argue that only by understanding the regulatory networks that underlie organismal form and function in a comparative context can we determine how developmental evolution can lead to adaptive changes in morphology." https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

EVODEVO ADAPTIVE EVOLUTION. "We discuss how regulatory hypotheses of developmental evolution can be used to investigate the phenotypic changes associated with adaptive diversification, providing an evolutionary developmental biology (evodevo) approach for the study of adaptive evolution." https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

CONTROL OF MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS. "Unlike biochemical or physiological traits, morphological traits are typically specified by genes that act upstream in major developmental pathways. As such, mutations in coding regions (‘functional’ mutations) were considered to incur sufficiently deleterious pleiotropy to be untenable for effecting morphological evolution." https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

FIRST STEP. "Novel phenotypes arise as a result of a particular mutation or combination of mutations becoming fixed in a population, but, in order for this to occur, the genetic change must first be tolerated by the developing organism and be inherited by its offspring." https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

LOGICAL STRATEGY. "Within a population, morphological change can occur via divergence in regulatory genes, leading to variation in gene expression, and thus the extrapolation to morphological evolution proceeding via diversification in regulatory loci provides a logical foundation for investigating the genetics underlying developmental evolution." https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

"VIROPHAGES are small viruses that eat other larger viruses, and are a type of Satellite Virus that needs the presence of another virus to flourish. Virophages include the Spitnik virophage, and the Marvirus virophage (aka Maverick), both found in water-cooling towers in Paris and the UK." Definately strange creatures. https://lnkd.in/djXb4Ng View in LinkedIn