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GENE ECOSYSTEMS. "Different environments determine which assemblages can donate/receive genes from other members thus creating special groups or exchange communities. Also, the type of genes laterally transferred among members of such communities might be different because of the disparate selective advantages resulting from the transfer of specific genes in different environments." https://lnkd.in/eXE-r93 View in LinkedIn

VIRAL TRANSFER OF GENES. "It becomes more appreciated that not only bacterial but also viral genes might be involved in transferring morphological and metabolic traits. Indeed, it has been suggested that ‘. . . viruses rather than bacteria massively explore sequence space’." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1462-2920.2003.00539.x/full View in LinkedIn

MODULAR IMPORTS. "Shuffling of genes among MGEs is facilitated by several factors. First, most elements are organized in a highly modular fashion. Modularity and recombination also play a major role in phage evolution and recombination across MGEs of different types, via the exchange of modules or the co-integration of an element within another, is a common phenomenon." (MGE, Mobile Genetic Elements). https://lnkd.in/eXE-r93 View in LinkedIn

VIRAL PARENTS. "‘Virio-Darwinism’ might explain evolutionary changes and inventions, which would be hard to explain otherwise. Indeed, viruses seem to be involved in major evolutionary inventions such as the origin of mammals or eukaryotes." https://lnkd.in/ehNRjAC View in LinkedIn

HIGHER ANIMALS. "HGT is a general feature of chordate genomes." https://lnkd.in/e5G7Nk8 View in LinkedIn

VIRAL MOSAICS. "Around 8 to 10 per cent of your DNA comes from viral ancestors. These sequences are the remains of prehistoric viruses that inserted their DNA into the genes of our ancestors, hundreds of millions of years ago. Some of them became permanent residents, and were passed down from parent to child. These endogenous retroviruses, or ERVs, are a legacy of epidemics past." https://lnkd.in/eVAWchP View in LinkedIn

INSERTS ARE STABLE. "Foreign genes undergo duplication and are distributed throughout the genome." https://lnkd.in/e5G7Nk8 View in LinkedIn

TOO COMPLEX FOR HIGH INNOVATION. "At some point...cells reached a certain threshold of complexity at which it became detrimental to embrace a bombardment of foreign genes." https://aeon.co/essays/genes-that-jump-species-does-this-shake-the-tree-of-life View in LinkedIn

OLD AND NEW. "Horizontal gene transfer is both ancient and ongoing." https://lnkd.in/e5G7Nk8 View in LinkedIn

COMPLEX BEINGS RESIST INNOVATION. "A primordial cell harbouring a small group of genes can potentially gain a lot by adding new genes to its repertoire; but a more sophisticated cell with hundreds or thousands of genes risks imbalancing an intricate genome fine-tuned by a longer period of natural selection. So, complex eukaryotic cells evolved new ways to protect their DNA and expunge genetic invaders." https://aeon.co/essays/genes-that-jump-species-does-this-shake-the-tree-of-life View in LinkedIn