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DEATH REPRESSOR AND ANTAGONIST. "In humans and mice, around twenty gene products that are homologues of the cell death repressor Ced-9 and its antagonist Egl-1 (the Bcl-2 family) have been identified, as well as more than ten homologues of the executioner Ced-3 (the caspase family) and at least one homologue of Ced-4 (Apaf-1, or apoptotic protease-activating factor 1)." http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this glimpse at the assembly of bacteriophages, these quasi-living viral entities, seemingly from outer space, whose apparent simplicity has us completely and entirely fooled. Just a dumb virus, we say. Not only the most successful creatures on earth but have played a major role in the evolution of humans and other life on this planet. So much for simplicity: the biggest outsourcing job in the history of the planet. And a vastly complex geometric enterprise. It is the plodding biologists who are dumb. View in LinkedIn

MANIFEST APPLICATIONS. "Recently innovative 2-D and 3-D structures were successfully constructed using the M13 bacteriophage. Its unique properties have been exploited in several studies relating to energy storage and harvesting area such as rechargeable batteries, piezoelectric devices, and solar cells." https://lnkd.in/dB6DwQj View in LinkedIn

BIOMIMICRY OF MILD CONDITION CHEMISTRY. "The M13 bacteriophage has demonstrated its capacity to fabricate various noble structures with evident functionality. The characteristic self-assembly property, the aqueous mild synthesis condition, and easy functionality of the M13 bacteriophage structure allows for its significant contribution to a variety of scientific areas." https://lnkd.in/dB6DwQj View in LinkedIn

ANOTHER BACTERIOPHAGE. "The M13 bacteriophage (Phage) is composed of 2, 700 copies of the helically arranged pVIII major coat protein on its body. Five to seven copies each of pIII, pVI, pIX, and pVII are located at each end of the M13 phage. It is a virus nanofiber of approximately 880 nm in length and 6.6 nm in diameter and is safe in humans." https://lnkd.in/dB6DwQj View in LinkedIn

COMMUNITIES OF CELLS NEEDED DEATH. "Together, these two mutually reinforcing views led to the initial acceptance of the idea that the evolutionary origin of genetic programs of cell suicide has been concomitant with the evolutionary origin of multicellular organisms." http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn

PREY THAT HUNTS FOR YOU. "Strategies allowing plasmids and bacteriophages to propagate in the bacterial colony involves various mechanisms that allow spreading from one bacteria to another. One of these strategies depends on the presence, in the infectious agents of genetic modules encoding a toxin and an antidote. In fact, most toxin/antidote modules that allow bacteria from a given species to kill other bacterial species are not encoded by the bacterial chromosome, but by plasmids that infect the bacteria.” http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn

GRAVE DISAPPEARANCE. "Genetically regulated programmed cell death is a phenotype that is characterized by the rapid disappearance of the cell that is expressing it. In other words, genes that encode effectors of programmed cell death can be viewed as allowing a phenotype that is the grave of the genome that expresses them." http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn

PHAGE ARMS RACE. "In the prokaryote world, competition for environmental resources is not restricted to competition between different bacterial species. Infectious agents, such as plasmids and bacteriophage viruses, also compete with bacteria: in this case, it is the bacteria itself that is the resource, and the evolutionary arms race involves the spreading of the heterogeneous mobile genetic elements in the bacterial colony." http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn

PHENOTYPIC SELECTION. "Natural selection does not act directly on genes, but on the phenotypes they allow the cell that encodes them to achieve. Genetic mutation leads to genetic diversification, and hence to phenotypic diversity. Natural selection sanctioned by death is a process of competition between phenotypes whereby genomes allowing for poorly adapted phenotypes do not get transmitted into the next generation, while genomes that allow fitter phenotypes become selected. http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v9/n4/full/4400950a.html View in LinkedIn