Year: 2022

BIG STEPS. "Major evolutionary transitions include the origin of prokaryotic and then eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms and eusocial animals." https://lnkd.in/dwWBEqU View in LinkedIn

CRITICAL HYPOTHESIS. "Viruses and mobile elements as drivers of evolutionary transitions." https://lnkd.in/dwWBEqU View in LinkedIn

MOBILE GENETIC ELEMENTS. "Various selfish elements parasitize on all cellular life forms. The relative abundances of different classes of viruses are dramatically different between prokaryotes and eukaryotes." https://lnkd.in/dsgDwFC View in LinkedIn

DNA AND RNA VIRUSES. "In prokaryotes, the great majority of viruses possess double-stranded (ds) DNA genomes, with a substantial minority of single-stranded (ss) DNA viruses and only limited presence of RNA viruses. In contrast, in eukaryotes, RNA viruses account for the majority of the virome diversity although ssDNA and dsDNA viruses are common as well." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682215000859 View in LinkedIn

GENETIC PARASITES. "All or nearly all cellular life forms are hosts to diverse selfish genetic elements with various levels of autonomy including plasmids, transposons and viruses. I present evidence that, at least up to and including the origin of multicellularity, evolutionary transitions are driven by the coevolution of hosts with these genetic parasites along with sharing of ‘public goods’." https://lnkd.in/dwWBEqU View in LinkedIn

1ST DRIVER. "Selfish elements drive evolutionary transitions at two distinct levels. First, mathematical modelling of evolutionary processes, such as evolution of primitive replicator populations or unicellular organisms, indicates that only increasing organizational complexity, e.g. emergence of multicellular aggregates, can prevent the collapse of the host–parasite system under the pressure of parasites." Re-read and digest. https://lnkd.in/dwWBEqU View in LinkedIn

2ND DRIVER. "Second, comparative genomic analysis reveals numerous cases of recruitment of genes with essential functions in cellular life forms, including those that enable evolutionary transitions." https://lnkd.in/dwWBEqU View in LinkedIn

NEW SELECTABLE ENTITIES. "Each of the transitions involves the emergence of a new, complex selectable entity—in other words, a new level of selection that acts on ensembles of entities from the previous level." https://lnkd.in/dwWBEqU View in LinkedIn

HIGHER LEVEL SELECTION. "The origin of multicellular organisms, which occurred on at least three independent occasions in the course of the evolution of eukaryotes, is perhaps the most obvious case in point whereby selection at the level of individual cells is supplanted by selection on cell collectives." https://lnkd.in/dwWBEqU View in LinkedIn

ENSEMBLE OF ENTITIES. "One could argue that evolution of complex systems in general involves a transition to selection at a higher level, that of an ensemble of entities, such as a group of genes encoding a particular set of proteins, from the selection at the lower level of individual entities (genes)." https://lnkd.in/dwWBEqU View in LinkedIn