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BACTERIA-ANT SYMBIOSIS. "Blochmannia, obligate endosymbionts of ants of the tribe Camponotini, have coevolved with their ant hosts for ∼40 MY. Reconstructed gene content of the last common ancestor (LCA) of these six Blochmannia genomes is reduced (690 protein coding genes), consistent with rapid gene loss soon after establishment of the symbiosis....has affected cellular functions and metabolic pathways, including DNA replication and repair, vitamin biosynthesis and membrane proteins." https://lnkd.in/erNiBXs View in LinkedIn

MASSIVE JUMP IN EUKARYOTES. "The complexity of the emerging chimeric organism drastically increases, both at the genomic and at the phenotypic level, and it has been argued that such complexification would not have been attainable if not for the endosymbiosis." https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

FROM SYMBIOSIS TO ORGANELLE. "Reductive evolution of endosymbionts can yield bacteria with tiny genomes consisting of 150–200 genes and lacking some essential genes such as those encoding several aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, which is suggestive of an ongoing transition to an organelle state." A snapshot in real time of how mitochondria and chloroplasts evolved. https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

BIG TICKET REDUCTIONS. "The mitochondria, the ubiquitous energy-transforming organelles of eukaryotes, and the chloroplasts, the organelles responsible for the eukaryotic photosynthesis, are the ultimate realizations of bacterial reductive evolution." Massive gene loses. https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

ADVANTAGE. "Gene loss can provide a selective advantage by conserving an organism’s limiting resources, provided the gene’s function is dispensable." http://mbio.asm.org/content/3/2/e00036-12.short View in LinkedIn

EUKARYOTE GENES. "The reconstructions consistently indicate that ancestral eukaryotes including...the founders of each supergroup were intron-rich forms, with intron densities higher than those in the genes of most extant eukaryotes and probably only slightly lower than those in the modern organisms with the most complex gene structures, such as mammals." https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

COMMON BACTERIAL REDUCTION. "Reductive genomic evolution, driven by genetic drift, is common in endosymbiotic bacteria." https://lnkd.in/e9TnyEE View in LinkedIn

ANCIENT REDUCTIONS. "The most compelling evidence of the dominance of genome reduction and simplification was obtained through the reconstruction of the genomic evolution of archaea that almost exclusively are free-living organisms." https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

SECONDARY GAINS. "The reductive trend is countered by proliferation of genes involved in parasite-host interaction such as, for example, ankyrin repeat proteins that act as secreted virulence factors." https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

REDUCTION CONSTRAINTS. "The evolution of the genomes of parasites, symbionts and commensals is not a one-way path of reduction. On the contrary, the reduction ratchet is constrained by the advantages of retaining certain metabolic pathways that complement the host metabolism." https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn