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EVOLUTIONARY BENEFITS. "Clonal reproduction also provides several evolutionary benefits, including avoidance of the costs associated with sexual reproduction and a means by which adaptive genotypes can be replicated rapidly after colonization of new environments." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/8859.full View in LinkedIn

OTHER SPAWN. "These ancient cellular genes, encoding cellular proteins with the HK97-like fold, might have independently given rise to the viral proteins with different topologies and insertional domains. Adaptation to more complex environments of higher level organisms such as animal cells could have naturally led to acquisition of additional structures by way of insertions at locations of the loops of the HK97-like fold, as revealed in eukaryotic viruses such as herpesviruses. Such insertional domains could also give rise to auxiliary proteins by way of gene splicing such as the proposed case between BPP-1 and P22-like phages." http://www.aimspress.com/article/10.3934/biophy.2015.2.200/fulltext.html View in LinkedIn

MORE PLASTIC ADAPTATION. "Relying to various degrees on vegetative reproduction, the capacity to conserve or reverse gene regulation changes over cell divisions has clear potential for optimization of plasticity and acclimation in response to environmental variation encountered. Clonal plants may be one of the best examples of organisms taking advantage of epigenetic acclimation as an alternative to the slower mechanisms of adaptation through natural selection." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11258-014-0430-z View in LinkedIn

GENE EVOLUTION. "The gene encoding one of these topologies might have evolved from the other through non-circular permutation in ancient cells through horizontal gene transfer—a rule for evolution in the prokaryotic world. In fact, although rare, non-circular permutation has been observed in cells, as exemplified by bacterial DNA methyltransferases." https://lnkd.in/dQSWuND View in LinkedIn

CLONES AND EPIGENETICS. "We examine how epigenetics may confer ecological advantages to clonal plants that could outweigh these evolutionary costs." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11258-014-0430-z View in LinkedIn

MORE KINGDOMS USING TEMPLATES. "Viruses likely originated from ancient cells through encapsulating cellular plasmids or genome fragments by cellular protein. Indeed, cellular complexes resembling the structure and topology of HK97 gp5 have been found in both bacteria and archaea cells. Similarly, it is natural to expect that cellular proteins with the BPP-1 topology of the HK97-like fold also exist elsewhere." http://www.aimspress.com/article/10.3934/biophy.2015.2.200/fulltext.html View in LinkedIn

SUCCESS VS COSTS. "Does the apparent success of clonal plants contradict the severe costs of clonal reproduction suggested by theory?" http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11258-014-0430-z View in LinkedIn

OUTLIER. "Presently, HK97 is the only known virus to display covalent chainmail formed with isopeptide crosslinks and thus constitutes its own group. The use of a single protein in HK97 to form a stable structure represents a highly optimized strategy, perhaps resulting from evolutionary selection. As such, it may represent a more recent emergence of complexes with the HK97-like fold." https://lnkd.in/dQSWuND View in LinkedIn

VEGETATIVE REPRODUCTION. "Clonality in plants is widespread and includes species that span temporally and spatially heterogeneous environments. Yet, theory predicts that clonally reproducing plants evolve at slower rates, risk accumulating more mutations than sexuals, and potentially lack the benefits of DNA repair mechanisms afforded by meiosis." https://lnkd.in/dS5_4wr View in LinkedIn

SOMATIC MUTATIONS. "Recent evidence suggests that somatic mutations can play a significant role in influencing fitness in clonal plants and may also help explain the occurrence of genetic diversity in sterile clonal populations. Highly polymorphic genetic markers offer outstanding opportunities for gaining novel insights into functional interactions between sexual and clonal reproduction in flowering plants." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/8859.full View in LinkedIn