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"SELFISH ELEMENTS make key contributions to evolutionary transitions at least at two levels. First, the parasite–host arms race leads to increased organizational complexity of biological systems, i.e. serving as a catalyst of evolutionary transitions. Second, viruses and mobile elements contribute specific genes that play major roles in the emergence of coherent wholes at a new level of complexity." https://lnkd.in/daxmUKR View in LinkedIn

TRANSITIONS DRIVEN BY 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/daxmUKR View in LinkedIn

EVOLUTIONARY TRANSITIONS. "The history of life is punctuated by evolutionary transitions which engender emergence of new levels of biological organization that involves selection acting at increasingly complex ensembles of biological entities. Major evolutionary transitions include the origin of prokaryotic and then eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms and eusocial animals." https://lnkd.in/daxmUKR View in LinkedIn

UBIQUITOUS VIRAL 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." https://lnkd.in/daxmUKR View in LinkedIn

PROFESSOR LLUIS P VILLARREAL, an extraordinary thinker and researcher. "For the last 15 years, I have focused my study on the general role of virus evolution on Life. In the last decade metagenomic assessments have led us to realize that viruses are the dominate biological entities of the biosphere and are the most numerous, diverse and dynamic genetic agents on Earth. I am now tracing how viruses have contributed to host group survival from bacteria to human social evolution." https://lnkd.in/enQH9Fn View in LinkedIn

VIRAL EDITING OF HOST IDENTITY. "Since viruses are naturally competent in host code but also extend that code, they are natural agents for code editing. They are also natural agents to create new host identity (self), although this typically involves cooperative populations of agents." https://lnkd.in/dk3eXRj View in LinkedIn

STABLE VIRAL COLONIES. "The study of DNA virus persistence and RNA virus evolution has defined the concepts of addiction modules and quasispecies which can respectively explain the persistence of virus information and the cooperative evolution of viral populations (including defective virus). Together, these concepts can be applied to a wide array of phenomena that emerge from stable virus colonization of host." https://lnkd.in/dk3eXRj View in LinkedIn

GROUP IDENTITY. "I consider the RNA (ribozyme) world scenario from the perspective of addiction modules and cooperating quasispecies (i.e., subfunctional agents that establish group identity). Such an RNA collective resembles a “gang” but requires the simultaneous emergence of endonuclease, ligase, cooperative catalysis, group identity, and history markers (RNA). I call such a collective a gangen (pathway to gang) needed for life to emerge." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12565/full View in LinkedIn

VIRAL JUMPING GENES. “The genomes of many eukaryotes contain a high amount of transposable elements – DNA sequences that can change their position within the genome...transposable elements can impact the gene content of a genome by inducing gene knockouts, modulating gene regulation or causing double-strand DNA breaks by transposable elements excision.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

STEM-LOOP RNA. "Quasispecies can also demonstrate group preclusion (e.g., hepatitis C). Stem-loop RNA domains are found in long terminal repeats (and viral RNA) and mediate viral regulation/identity. Thus, stem-loop RNAs may be ancestral regulators." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12565/full View in LinkedIn