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DRIVERS OF GENETIC INNOVATION. "The huge population of viruses, combined with their rapid rates of replication and mutation, makes them the world’s leading source of genetic innovation: they constantly “invent” new genes. And unique genes of viral origin may travel, finding their way into other organisms and contributing to evolutionary change." https://lnkd.in/dHuVTgq View in LinkedIn

ANCIENT EVOLVING THINGS. "Viruses have their own, ancient evolutionary history, dating to the very origin of cellular life. For example, some viral-repair enzymes—which excise and resynthesize damaged DNA, mend oxygen radical damage, and so on— are unique to certain viruses and have existed almost unchanged probably for billions of years." https://lnkd.in/dHuVTgq View in LinkedIn

YAY CAMP. "The cell nucleus itself is of viral origin." https://lnkd.in/dHuVTgq View in LinkedIn

NAY CAMP. "We contend that there is strong evidence against the notion that viruses are alive and represent ancient lineages of the tree of life." https://lnkd.in/dt9i8je View in LinkedIn

IN VOGUE. "Recently, the notion that viruses are living organisms that have had a role in the evolution of some essential features of cells has experienced a renaissance owing to the discovery of unusually large and complex viruses that possess typical cellular genes." https://lnkd.in/dt9i8je View in LinkedIn

"EPIGENETIC STATES are altered in dormant versus non-dormant buds. Deletion within the locus containing tandemly repeated DORMANCY ASSOCIATED MADS-BOX (DAM) genes has been linked to the evergrowing peach locus that prevents dormancy. DAM6 is upregulated during dormancy and its repression during dormancy release correlates with changes in histone modifications." https://lnkd.in/duazcMZ View in LinkedIn

EPIGENETIC HALLMARKS. "The global levels of genomic DNA methylation and acetylated histone 4 (H4) show cyclic and opposite variations during the seasonal development of chestnut (Castanea sativa), with higher DNA methylation ratios and lower H4 acetylation levels in dormant buds with respect to actively growing tissues." https://lnkd.in/duD22Cw View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues and concludes from last weekend on plant dormancy, with a focus on the biochemical and genetic aspects. This fascinating topic has enthralled botanists for a long time, and has very practical applications in agriculture. It is the confluence of epigenetics and biochemistry, for the environmental triggers vary in timing, and it is critical that the sleeping plants trigger development in a coordinated way across time and space in order to hit reproductive windows synchronously. View in LinkedIn

EPIGENETIC CIRCADIAN CLOCK. "Pieces of an Epigenetic “Alarm Clock” for Bud Dormancy and Awakening. Several reviews postulate the participation of different epigenetic mechanisms involving histone modification, DNA methylation, and the synthesis of small non-coding RNAs in regulating bud dormancy events, based on evident similarities between the environmental and molecular control of dormancy in buds and other well-known processes, such as flowering initiation, vernalization, and seed development." https://lnkd.in/duD22Cw View in LinkedIn

BIG LIFE. "There’s no doubt this is a living organism,” says Jean-Michel Claverie, a virologist at the the CNRS UPR laboratories in Marseilles, part of France’s basic-research agency. “The fact that it can get sick makes it more alive.” https://lnkd.in/dihxig3 View in LinkedIn