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UNPROTECTED GENOMES. “The enforced stability of genomic content in multi-cellular eukaryotes is necessary for maintaining a non-pathological multi-cellular, differentiated condition. Curiously, this critical attribute is not on any of the lists of essential eukaryotic pre-adaptations necessary for the evolution of multi-cellularity. This absence may be a result of the pervasive multi-cellular eukaryotes-centricity of much classical biology thinking.” https://lnkd.in/ewnQ9Vg View in LinkedIn

MALFUNCTIONS AND DISEASE. “Among multi-cellular eukaryotes, when genetic or genomic changes produce significant adverse effect, many of the resulting problems are produced by perturbations in development, or disruptions of a complicated bit of physiology necessary to accomplish some critical function in differentiated somatic tissue.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

PROTECTED GENOMES. “Within multi-cellular eukaryotes cells, genetic information is stored in a very stable, heavily regulated genome whose content is well protected from outside influences. Generating a multi-cellular state requires a regulated genome, and the successful regulation of gene expression, both in development and in physiology, depends in part on the maintenance of stable genomic content.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

BROKEN BOUNDARY. “In the dark-matter realm of prokaryotes, none of this is true. Prokaryotes have only one kind of cell division and thus, for them, there can be no distinction between growth and reproduction. With no distinction between somatic cells and germs cells, individuals in the Weismannian sense cannot occur.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

MORTAL SOMA. “In the Weismannian view, “individuals” are large aggregations of physically connected, genetically identical somatic cells that carry a genetic payload sequestered in the germ line. Somatic cells, and thus individuals, are mortal, whereas cells in the germ line are potentially immortal.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

SEPARATING GROWTH. “In multi-cellular eukaryotes, a distinction is made between growth—cell divisions that simply result in an increase in size of an individual; and reproduction—cell divisions and fusions that result in the creation of a single, genetically novel cell, the zygote, that will be the founding cell for a new individual). https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

TERRA INFIRMA. “None of these foundational notions of classical biology can be applied to the biology of prokaryotes. Furthermore, compared with multi-cellular eukaryotes, prokaryotes operate in a spatio-temporal context that is quantitatively so different as to be almost qualitatively incommensurate.” https://lnkd.in/ewnQ9Vg View in LinkedIn

ASSUMPTIONS OF CLASSICAL BIOLOGY. “(a) individual organisms are objectively real, fundamental units of the biosphere, (b) within cells, the content of the genome is extremely stable, protected, and highly regulated, (c) barring mutation, genetic novelty is acquired only during reproduction, largely as the result of recombinations generated during sexual reproduction, (d) all life can be organized into similarly defined species, and (e) with perfect knowledge, the biosphere could be arranged into one true, unified tree of life.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

PROMISCUOUS GENE SHARING. “Horizontal gene transfer among prokaryotes can occur between members of the same “species” as well as between microbes separated by vast taxonomic distances. As such, much prokaryotic genetic diversity is both created and sustained by high levels of horizontal gene transfer. Although horizontal gene transfer can occur for genes in the core-genome component of a pan-genome, it occurs much more frequently among genes in the optional, flex-genome component.” https://lnkd.in/ewnQ9Vg View in LinkedIn

PEAR THINKING. “Most profound is the demonstration that many fundamental notions in classical biology in fact only apply to the multi-cellular eukaryotes realm.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn