Month: September 2022

BROAD FOOTPRINT. "The transposon BovB – first found in cows (hence the bovine epithet) – is also present in anoles, opossums, platypuses, wallabies, horses, sea urchins, silkworms and zebrafish, to name a few." https://aeon.co/essays/genes-that-jump-species-does-this-shake-the-tree-of-life View in LinkedIn

GUT HGT. "In Japan, some people’s gut bacteria have stolen seaweed-digesting genes from ocean bacteria lingering on raw seaweed salads." This is an important observation. https://aeon.co/essays/genes-that-jump-species-does-this-shake-the-tree-of-life View in LinkedIn

COMMON GENE SHUFFLING. "Bdelloid rotifers – tiny translucent animals that look something like sea slugs – have constructed a whopping eight per cent of their genome using genes from bacteria, fungi and plants. Fish living in icy seawater have traded genes coding for antifreeze proteins. Gargantuan-blossomed rafflesia have exchanged genes with the plants they parasitise." https://aeon.co/essays/genes-that-jump-species-does-this-shake-the-tree-of-life View in LinkedIn

SWAP HOT-SPOTS. "Potential hot spots in the environment for recombination and HGT include biofilms, the rhizosphere, decomposing material, guts of soil animals and the interior of bacterivorous protozoa." https://lnkd.in/eXE-r93 View in LinkedIn

GENE ECOSYSTEMS. "We need to start thinking about genomes as ecological units rather than monolithic units." https://aeon.co/essays/genes-that-jump-species-does-this-shake-the-tree-of-life View in LinkedIn

HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER, more widespread than we ever imagined, more frequent, and more important. Many implications. https://lnkd.in/eQd3SN9 View in LinkedIn

HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER by mobile genetic elements: how frequent is it in prokaryotes? One large study grappled with the question. "From 422,971 proteins in 144 genomes we generated and aligned 22,432 orthologous sets (families) of size 4 or greater, covering 220,240 proteins (52.1%) in total to answer the question of the frequency of horizontal (HGT) or lateral gene transfer (LGT)." https://lnkd.in/e5eZ_2E View in LinkedIn

SOME GENES ARE SUSCEPTIBLE to lateral gene transfer, others less so: "informational genes including 16S rDNA are particularly resistant to LGT, and cell wall and cell division proteins tend to be inherited vertically. Integral components of the ribosome show a strong tendency toward vertical descent...aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, which interact at a single common site on the exterior of the ribosome, frequently show evidence of LGT." https://lnkd.in/e5eZ_2E View in LinkedIn

NICHE EXPLOITIVE GENES are susceptible to lateral gene transfer. "We do find extensive evidence for the preferential transfer of metabolic genes: acquisition of such genes would allow organisms to gain access to new energy and nutrient sources, thereby increasing their ability to colonize or compete in the environment." https://lnkd.in/e5eZ_2E View in LinkedIn

HIGHLY ADAPTIVE. "HGT can promote adaptation to new environments by allowing molecular innovations to be traded within ecological niches. For example, HGT has enhanced bacterial adaptation to life in environments containing heavy metals and toxic organic compounds." https://lnkd.in/ej6mCcR View in LinkedIn