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GUT MICROBE DENSITY. "The intestinal ecosystem boasts the highest density of microbes of all known environments, with 10(11)–10(12) cells per gram of gastrointestinal content; opportunities for HGT by conjugation are afforded by the intimate proximity of microorganisms." (HGT = Horizontal Gene Transfer). http://www.jci.org/articles/view/72333 View in LinkedIn

WIDESPREAD ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE. "A study that described culturable microbes from over 600 individuals revealed that the majority of these individuals harbored gut communities in which at least 10% of members were resistant to a single antibiotic, and over a third carried microbes that exhibited multidrug resistance phenotypes." http://www.jci.org/articles/view/72333 View in LinkedIn

SELECTIVE PRESSURE. "Treatment with antibiotics promotes the transfer of genetic information among bacteria by increasing conjugation, phage transduction, and plasmid mobility, primarily through the activation of cellular stress responses." http://www.jci.org/articles/view/72333 View in LinkedIn

CHRONIC GENE LOSS WITH BURSTS OF GAINS. "The findings that in many if not most lineages evolution is dominated by gene (and more generally, DNA) loss that occurs in a roughly clock-like manner whereas gene gain occurs in bursts associated with the emergence of major new groups of organisms imply a biphasic model of evolution." https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

HUMAN GUT ON ANTIBIOTICS. "Changes to the highly co-evolved microbial community architecture lead to changes in resource availability and species-species interactions, opening niches available for pathogenic intrusion and leading to the loss of colonization resistance. Antibiotics also select for antibiotic-resistant community members, enriching the presence of resistance genes in the microbiome." http://www.jci.org/articles/view/72333 View in LinkedIn

TWO PHASES OF EVOLUTION. "These and many other cases of reductive evolution are consistent with a general model composed of two distinct evolutionary phases: the short, explosive, innovation phase that leads to an abrupt increase in genome complexity, followed by a much longer reductive phase, which encompasses either a neutral ratchet of genetic material loss or adaptive genome streamlining." https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

EXCESSIVE USE. "Antibiotic resistance genes are ubiquitous in present day natural environments. In part, this reflects the widespread human use of large quantities of antibiotics over the past 70 years and the strong selective pressures this use has exerted, including the dissemination of resistant organisms. However, the resistance genes themselves are ancient." View in LinkedIn

FIRST TENDENCIES. "There are effectively irrefutable arguments for a genuine increase in complexity during evolution. Indeed, the successive emergence of higher grades of complexity throughout the history of life is impossible to ignore." https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

ANTIBIOTICS "have been found to alter the taxonomic, genomic, and functional capacity of the human gut microbiota, with effects that are rapid and sometimes persistent. Broad-spectrum antibiotics reduce bacterial diversity while expanding and collapsing membership of specific indigenous taxa." Gut microbiota diversity is key for health. https://lnkd.in/eusKgr4 View in LinkedIn

REDUCTIVE EVOLUTION. "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. However, such reductive evolution, its paramount importance for eukaryotes notwithstanding, was considered to represent a highly specialized trend in the history of life." https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn